


Delivering Persephone

by Tosa



Series: Pound of Flesh [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Death, F/F, F/M, Kidnapping, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-05 22:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 66,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1835152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tosa/pseuds/Tosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake English's life was wholly ordinary - save for the fact that he was dating the up-and-coming leader of the Revolution in Derse. When a tragedy turns a romantic tryst into a living nightmare, Jake will have to search the far reaches of an unfamiliar, war-torn country in search of a mysterious girl, who, he is told, is the key to his lover's salvation.<br/>But neither the girl nor his benefactor are as they seem. And as the months and miles wear down his resolve, Jake will be forced to decide whether a person's life can justly be assigned a price...</p><p>Parallel and sequel to <i>I'll Have My Pound of Flesh Rare</i> and <i>Something Rotten</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Footsteps in Quicksand

**Author's Note:**

> as with the previous fics in the series, characters, triggers, and pairings will be added as they appear, so be sure to check the tags before you read a new chapter in case anything upsetting pops up. the rating may eventually go up, too.
> 
> it's the beginning of the end...

Once upon a time, the world was larger than it is now. There were five continents, and everyone knew that. And there were five highly intelligent species native to each continent, which everyone also knew.

But the world grew sick, and as its inhabitants died off, those remaining forgot. The inhabitants of the world had never lived in harmony, per se, but there was a noticeable difference between how they treated one another when the world was big and young, and how they treated one another after the land folded in on itself, and the oceans closed in, and entire species, including the highly intelligent ones, started to succumb to extinction.

You've probably been wondering about whatever happened to human culture, that they have a few very old plays and little else to speak for, and where the Felt came from, if they're not carapaces fouled by magic, and why it is that the world within these pages is so, so very small. No one ever talks about any countries other than Derse or Prospit aside from Alternia, and that empire seems to have been snuffed out. Evacuated, after being ravaged by famine and a mysterious disease.

Well, my friend, I am sorry to tell you this, but these frightening omens portend exactly what you'd expect:

Something rotten.

Ω

As a kid, looking at a map of the continent, he'd looked at Derse and thought it was so small, smaller than some of Prospit's counties. How could it be its own country, he wondered. The disconnect between paper and reality won't occur to him until he journeys the vast majority of Derse on foot, forced to perform on a larger scale the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack.

Everything here is so starkly different from his home country. The air is thicker, harder to breathe. The sky is darker, even during the day. It's astonishing, how even the texture of the soil here is so different from that of Prospit. Rocky, light – useless! No wonder Derse had seized Lolar. This barren stretch of land is so different from the voluptuous forests just miles away at the Dersite-Prospitian borders. It's as if the deeper one gets into Derse, the more hopelessly dead the land becomes.

And it certainly is the world of destruction it's renowned to be. He's having an easier time avoiding the chaos of the Revolution than he had expected to, what with most of the conflict concentrated in the capital city. But even out here, in these fishing towns, he finds the violence has spread, in smaller, more insidious ways.

He stops outside the door of a rather shabby-looking inn. The sea air tends to ravage paint, and if one cannot afford to replace it every year it gets so...

He shakes his head. He isn't here to criticize these people. They can't help their position in life. That was something his mother had taught him – never to open his mouth in harm against those he barely knew, and for such trivial reasons as the lack of signifiers of wealth.

He pushes the door open and enters a space that is filled with heat and noise and the bodies making them. He wades through the crowd, making his way to the bar. He doesn't like to drink, but he orders something anyway because it's hard to get on a proprietor’s good side when you won't buy their wares, and as he has discovered over the last few weeks, people, men, especially, are quicker to trust those willing to imbibe. And so Jake English imbibes. 

“Did you hear?” The bartender asks, voice light and conversational. “That prince guy, the one leading all that ruckus in the capital. He's dead.”

Jake stiffens. “The last I heard, he had disappeared, not died.”

The barkeep shrugs. “Same difference, in Derse.” A man sitting a little away, slumped over his drink, gives a low snort of laughter.

There _is_ a difference, Jake thinks, especially to those loved ones clinging to hope, but he doesn't push the issue. Even in a grimy, lower class establishment like this, there are seadwellers out the wazoo. And as fickle as they are in their allegiances, you can never talk anti-Condesce politics in front of sea dwellers unless they invite you to. They'll report you to the authorities otherwise, regardless of their own political leanings. One thing Jake has learned in his time wandering Derse, which Dirk had never told him (perhaps thinking it a given), was that there is not just a fat bounty out for the heads of conspirators in the revolution, but for anyone who talks openly against the state. Everyone is suspect, and it seems no one is held innocent until proven a danger. Even disagreeing with the state is a threat to it.

“What's the troll population like, around here?” Jake asks a carapace to his left.

The carapace looks at him, talks to him as if he's terribly stupid. “They're the majority, next to us.” Us meaning carapaces. “Just like everywhere else on the continent.”

Jake sighs. “No, I mean. Blood caste concentrations. Who is most common here?”

“We're in a _sea_ town,” the carapace sighs. “So _sea-dwellers,_ of _course_. Are you not from around here?”

“No. Hence the questions.”

He jabs a thumb at Jake and gives a weary look to the bartender. “Prospitian, definitely. You can tell by that accent. Snobby as hell.”

The bartender gives a serene nod, like a kindergarten teacher dealing with a child. “I'm cutting you off.”

The carapace is instantly scandalized. “What? No!!”

They argue for a little bit before the carapace storms off, nearly falling off his stool and tripping on his own two feet on his way out. The bartender, the only other human in the inn, apologizes to Jake. “The war with you guys was, what, eight years ago? But it feels like yesterday – you're bound to meet some people still bitter about it.”

“I don't really see why,” Jake mutters, slumping in his chair. “ _You're_ the ones who won.”

The man shrugs. “War didn't affect me much, personally. I've always made a happy living here. Bought the place as a young man, kept it running with my own sweat and tears. Nothing holds a fort down quite like plain hard work.”

Jake studies him. Tall, pink-skinned, with arms like tree trunks and a hair coating his face like fur. A white human with an inn in a sea-dweller's town. No, a cynical part of Jake thinks, a part that speaks in tones eerily similar to Dirk's voice – this man certainly  _wasn't_ benefitted by the war. He's probably lived comfortably his entire life. Humans are a dying race, but they are not a disenfranchised one.... not as a whole, anyway _._

Jake makes light conversation with the innkeeper. He  _thinks_ he's being subtle, but about half-way through the conversation, the man asks him, “What's you angle?”

“A-angle?” Jake's hand wanders to his collar. “I don't know...”

“You're asking an awful lot about the demographics of the area. You looking to move here?” The barkeep squints. “Or are you working for somebody?”

Jake hesitates. To say he's moving would be less dubious, but now that he knows he's not terribly good at lying, he goes for partial truth. “I'm answering to someone else,” Jake admits. He hesitates. “A census-taker.”

The barkeep looks like he doesn't believe that. “Yeah? Where your forms?”

“I-I'm, I'm not the census-taker himself, per se, I _work_ for him. I'm the pre-census. Person.” Dammit, he's sweating. He should stop lying now; there's no way he can make himself sound convincing, with this man looking at him so intently. But what is he supposed to say? How is he supposed to explain his situation without sounding like he's absolutely mad?

His sucks down a large mouthful of his drink and avoids eye contact while the barkeep continues to scrutinize him. Jake wants to drain the glass, but he can't breathe and his head hurts so he sets the drink down, mumbles, “I have... an appointment,” and slips away from the bar, through the crowd, and out the door.

The air outside is so dense, so humid despite the cold winds whipping from the nearby sea. It's his first port town, and he's already found that he hates staying in inns this close to the sea because the beds are always damp and no surface ever feels entirely clean. He wonders how many of these towns he'll have to make his way through. He wonders if he's giving up too early in the day, before he resolves to look around here more tomorrow. Maybe he'll find the market and hone in on the gossipy types – old women love him. Yes, he's sure he'll find a lead tomorrow.

Ω

Dirk's eyes had burned like a sunset. Yeah – yeah, that was a romantic enough thought. And he hadn't forced it, either. But then those twin sunsets were coming close, and their lips were touching, and – dammit. Dammit, dammit, Jake thought, even as he pressed back. The spark was gone.

Dirk pulled away. “I'm sorry,” he said, as he always said when they were together.

“Don't be,” Jake replied, just as usual. “That was. Good.”

Dirk gave him a troubled look before slipping his fingers through Jake's. Jake squeezed back on reflex.

“I mean it,” he repeated, giving Dirk a severe look. “You're my friend. My best friend.” That, at least, was not a lie. “I love you. It's just, there's an awful lot going on right now. I suppose I'm distracted.”

And that _could_ be true, really. Jake didn't know that it wasn't the upheaval of a continent that was to blame for his... problem.

Dirk smiled – an awkward thing, a sad thing, forced there by politeness and the need to reassure. “It's all right. I like just being with you.”

He liked just being away from his responsibilities, Jake reckoned. Not sourly, of course. It was understandable for Dirk to want to get away from being a messiah, sometimes.

Jake cleared his throat. “So when is. When is the next big thing? When do you. Fight.” Or whatever it is you revolutionaries do, Jake thought. He felt terribly out of touch, but the papers in Propsit were vague, no – they were downright ignoring the civil war in Derse. Or, whatever kind of war it was. Jake supposed it was silly to call any war civil.

Dirk sighed. “I can't tell you that.” His eyes flitted from the trees, where Jake imagined he was tracing the form of his turbulent thoughts, and back to Jake's face. “I can't tell you anything.”

“Oh.” It sounded, oddly, like an apology. “Well, silly of me to ask.” He just wanted to fill this awful quiet that always seemed to settle over them when they were together these days. He and Dirk had grown up together, had dated... for years, now, which Jake still couldn't believe, that they'd actually held on... But their lives trajectories' were rapidly diverging. Had been slated to diverge from the start. And it was getting harder and harder to understand one another, with them becoming wholly different people.

Jake's biggest worry, when he parted ways with Dirk? Finishing school. Finding low-skilled work until he could figure out how to break it to his mother that he didn't feel cut out for university. Hardly the sort of thing his boyfriend would deign to concern himself with, not with the _weight of a country_ on his shoulders, a monstrous burden in comparison to Jake's petty concerns.

“We can just be quiet,” Dirk said, and Jake almost laughed, _yes, because I'm just that painful to talk to,_ “When you know someone well, you don't always have to talk.”

“Yes,” Jake managed to grind out before pressing the heel of his hand to his mouth, hard, to stop the laughter. _We don't know each other, we don't know each other at all._

Dirk's hand slipped out of his ( _too sweaty,_ Jake noted), then, gently, lighted on top of his. So they were no longer tangled together, but. Cupped. The weight of Dirk's hand keeping his from slipping away without any guilt.

Ω

All he has to go off is her blood color, but the demon had sworn that would be enough. Jake grumbles to himself now, in the present, “Probably the only information that tosser even had.”

At home, he'd be reluctant to get out of bed, wanting to snooze a little longer, curl up in the quilt and be quiet for a little while, even if he couldn't necessarily fall back asleep. But here, in this seaside town, in this damp, salty-smelling mattress with lumps galore, he just about hops out of the bed as if it bit him on the ass.

He gets dressed and, after counting the money in his pocket, decides against staying another night here, gathers his things, and slips out the back. He paid up front, and he isn't interested in any checking-out fee that might be sprung on him by the desperate-looking old crone who owns this place. She was a green-blood who'd kept holding out her hand expectantly and asking him to “jog her old memory a bit” when he'd pressed her for how many in and around her caste were living in this town.

With one leg out the window and his pack slung over his back, ready to jump into the bush one story beneath his room, Jake suddenly wonders if he isn't the first to come through this town with such questions. Or if the people of Derse really are just always hiding something. Suspicious characters, the lot of them, all shifty eyes and wringing hands. How he was meant to pry this girl's whereabouts out of a country of paranoids was beyond him.

He lands on his feet with barely a wobble, although he winces at the crash of the leaves scratching him through his pants and the force of the landing as it reverberates through his legs. This barren, treeless place has him out of practice. He vows that he'll work some gymnastic exercises into his exercise routine, although... he's not sure how he'll accomplish that in the dingy hotel rooms he'll likely be inhabiting for the next few months.

Months – no, no, not months. He physically shakes his head at that thought. This won't take months. He won't let it take months. It simply shouldn't, he thinks, wading his way through leaves and bramble, but. How would he know? He's not Dirk. He's never done reconnaissance before. As a kid he was terrible at just plain old hide-and-seek at his uncle's – albeit, it was a _mansion,_ a massive place for his wily friends and cousin to steer clear of his stumbling gait, but a country is much larger than a mansion. And people come to Derse _specifically_ to disappear, he thinks, remembering what little his mother told him of Dirk's parents.

The thought of her gives him pause. Even more so than the thought of Dirk. He pauses in picking leaves out of his clothes to remember: when this is all over, he can be permitted to go home. And – and perhaps... if he can convince him, perhaps if he plays the hero card... he won't be going home empty-handed.

Jake picks up his pace, turning the corner to the front of the inn, looking left, right, before walking out onto the street and heading back towards the only pub he's left unsearched. He's going to march in there, order a pint, and wheedle his way into these people's hearts. He's gonna seduce this town! And when he asks what he wants to know, they'll sing like birds!

The door creaks when he opens it and when he steps inside, barely anyone throws him a glance. The noise level is dismally low for a bar, and most of the patrons are slumped over their respective tables, their eyes dead, faces obscured by shadow. Jake wonders if the lighting is poor because these people don't want to have to own up to the fact they're drinking so early in the morning, and are hiding their faces as best they can. One man seems to be taking it too far, with his face smushed against the table – oh, no, Jake realizes, he's not hiding, he's passed out.

Trying not to look as uncomfortable as he feels, Jake marches over to a table, pointing finger pistols at a scantily clad troll girl as he goes. “A pint of brew for me, my good woman!” he crows, trying not to feel like an idiot when she rolls her eyes at him before heading back behind the bar. She's the only troll here. Whipping his head around, Jake notices that the crowd is a few humans and a lot of carapaces. Hmm. Actually, now that he thinks about it, this place doesn't seem to have a restaurant attached, doesn't seem to be much more than a mere pub. He wonders if that has anything to do with...

And then it hits him. Gah! Stupid! He's hanging around a bar looking for trolls when they can't even get drunk! Their species doesn't experience intoxication like that – oh, dammit, Jake!

With a groan, he buries his face in his hands. He'd thought he was so clever, coming here first thing in the morning – people gossip in bars, they flock there... Well. People meaning those who have _use_ for alcohol. Who the hell drinks this shit for its taste, he thinks sourly, as the bar maid returns with a pint of yellow, frothy muck. Ugh. What a waste of money. God knows how dry his purse is wont to get if he keeps this idiocy up...

Well. He's already here, he's already made this woman drag this crap out, so he might as well make the most of it. Tossing her a coin (which misses her outstretched hand completely), Jake gets up, pitcher in hand, and bravely marches up to the first person he sees who's running low on beer. Sliding into a booth across from a rather big carapace fellow, Jake says, “Hello, chap – I'll give you this pint if you can tell me how many suspicious trolls live in this town.”

The carapace eyes the pint, and then him. “...Define suspicious,” he says. “Suspicious, like, offers strangers beer and asks invasive questions about townsfolk?”

Jake forces a laugh. “Funny, I wouldn't think a carapace defensive of trolls. Didn't they steal your government, isn't that what the big hullabaloo in the capital is all about?”  
“Hey, hey, watch it,” the carapace snaps. Jake notes with triumph that he takes the pitcher's handle and tops off his glass. “You're a fucking Prospy, aren't you? You people are so fucking insensitive. Yeah, trolls fucking took the capital, they also slaughter anybody who questions their Witch Queen.”

He didn't actually say witch, but Jake filters that out, as he doesn't like that sort of language. “I thought only the sea-dwellers did that kind of slaughtering.”

“This is a sea town, buddy. Sea-dwellers're all we've got.”

“There's a green-blood running the inn just across the way,” Jake points out. “You know her?” The carapace doesn't even pause before nodding, lip curled over sharp teeth in an unintentionally menacing wince. “Good,” Jake says. “She wasn't very forthcoming with information. I was wondering if you could tell me, since they seem so rare, how many other mid-castes are in town. Greens, specifically. I don't care about them once they get into the teal hues.”

The carapace narrows his white, pupiless eyes. “The hell you asking that for?”

Jake shrugs. “Looking for somebody, if you must know. It's important I find her soon, you see, people are very... worried about her.”

The carapace slides the pint away from himself. “What game are you playing?”

What is it with Dersites getting so defensive so quickly? “Game? There's no _game._ I'm looking for a girl and I'm tired of getting nowhere, and I thought, since you've got no reason to feel protective of trolls-”

“How do you know that?” the carapace snapped. “You think I'm a loyalist to the Black Queen just 'cause I'm a carapace? I am devoted to _Her Imperious Condescension, and I do not question her authority,”_ he shouts, gaze on Jake but voice projected to the rest of the bar. A couple of people look up at them.

Jake starts to sweat. Hands up in defense, he says, “I'm sorry, mate. Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers. It's just important I find this girl.”

“You want me to betray my country? You want me to point you in the direction of some dissident – you think _I'd befriend_ dissidents?!” If carapaces had thinner skin, Jake thinks there'd be a vein throbbing on this man's forehead. He stands up abruptly, drawing the entire bar's attention with the scrape, crash of his chair falling back and his voice booming out. “You take your revolutionary bullshit and you GET OUT OF MY TOWN!”

“Revolutionary?!” Jake chokes. “No! No, I'm not a revolutionary, I-”

“Out!” the carapace snarls, straightening his posture and making himself bigger. “ _OUT!_ ”

Jake's  hand seizes his pocket, feeling the bulge where the pure white, flintlock pistol is hidden in his coat. A security reflex. He's not going to jostle it willy nilly when the thing's got no safety setting; he's not an idiot. He's been handling guns since he was very young. This one – the demon gave it to him. It's slick and it's more advanced than any firearm he's ever seen, even for just a little thing, and he stops himself from pulling it out because he doesn't need blood on his hands, no, he's never going to go that far.

The carapace is taller than Jake realized and he has to really fight the urge to pull the pistol out of his pocket when the massive man lunges at him. There is a tangle of limbs and Jake, because he's no pushover, lands a few good punches before he's thrown out of the bar on his ass. Before the door swings shut, Jake sees another carapace man come out from behind the counter to scream abuses at Jake's angry companion.

Jake gets up, groaning. His glasses have been knocked askew and he adjusts them. _Well. At least they aren't broken. No idea where I'd get them repaired, if they were._ He trudges along a few steps, until he reaches the mouth of the alleyway next to the pub. He sees a trashcan and, an unusual rage shooting up through his chest, he lands a savage kick to the can, doubling over and hissing pseudo-curses through his teeth when this proves to be a less than wonderful decision. As he's rubbing his foot, he's aware of the pub doors swinging open again, and a tall, dark figure approaching...

Ignoring the pain, he whips around, ready to defend himself, only to find a total stranger standing there. The stranger is lean, with dark, smooth skin, black, wiry hair, nose and face and lips and everything about him mercifully human. He gives Jake a wary look, yanking a cigarette out of his coat pocket. “You want one?”

Jake shakes his head. “I don't smoke.” He tries to get out of his kneeling position but winces, hands going back to his foot.

The man nods at Jake's foot. “You get that in the brawl in there?”

“This? No, no. I just...” Jake gestures vaguely. “Kicked the trash can. I was angry, and... Stupid.” Why did he admit that just now? Why didn't he just lie to this man, let him think he'd gotten this injury by sympathy-worthy, not self-inflicted methods?

The stranger snorts as he brings his cigarette to his lips. “You got that guy real riled up in there. Thankfully the owner's chewing him out for making a mess in his bar, or he might come out here after you.”

Jake can feel the blood rush to his face. “Yeah, I-I suppose I could've been more tactful with my questions, though...”

He falls quiet. There's no noise except the puff of the man's exhale. A woman on the opposite street calls out to him and he waves wordlessly back.

“We got a small town, here,” the stranger says to Jake. As if his act of politeness owes explanation. “Everybody knows everybody, and, save for the snootier sea-dwellers, we're all _familiar_ with each other. We _like_ each other, even. Nobody's gonna sell nobody else out. Not to any outsider, regardless of what side they claim to work for.” He gives Jake a rather severe dose of direct eye contact. “You got me?”

So. This man's an eavesdropper. “I got you.”

The man takes another drag on his cigarette. “Who're you looking for, exactly?”

Jake shakes his head. “Does it matter? You basically just told me I'm not getting anything out of this town.”

The man smirks. “Call it curiosity. If I know her, I'll have a good laugh with her, later.”

Or warn her, Jake thinks. Then, “You even heard she's a girl? How much of my conversation did you listen in on?”

The stranger shrugs. “I hate to break it to you, but you're not all that subtle. I guarantee the whole bar could hear you two even before the shouting started.”

Jake groaned. “Great. So if there _is_ a limeblood girl in your town, there could be dozens of people running off to tell her some strange man's after her.”

The other man's eyebrows shoot up. His cigarette stops dead in its journey to his mouth. “A _limeblood?_ You're looking for a limeblood?”

Jake nods.

“Like... the _extinct_ type limeblood? No shit?”

Jake nods again, certain before the stranger even says it. His shock is too genuine.

“We've got a lot of strange types here, but... I've never heard of a _living_ limeblood. That's the shit of folk tales, like. Gryphons and bobcats, you know? Only crazies dying for attention claim to see limebloods.” The man pauses, thinking. “Well. Those stupid enough to want to bring the crown to their doorstep. They take mutant and limeblood claims _really_ seriously.”

“Oh, bollocks.” Jake slumps, face in his hands. “Thanks for reminding me of how impossible this all is. You know I haven't even been able to dredge up rumors? I've got _nothing_ to go on...”

The man considers him for a few moments. “You don't seem the type to work for the crown. Your hands are too dirty. And you don't seem like a revolutionary, either. Hands aren't dirty enough.”

Jake pulls his hands away from his face and, puzzled, studies them. The stranger goes on.

“What do you know about lime trolls? Anything?”

Jake hesitates. “I... I know that they're all dead.”

The stranger takes a deep drag on his cigarette, looking at Jake carefully. “They're known for being magical – incredibly powerful, too powerful. It's why the empress wiped them out.” Another drag. “So? Follow that trail. Ask who the resident witches, the most powerful seers in the town are, claim you need healing or your fortune told or some bullshit.” When Jake looks at him incredulously, he scowls. “You don't believe me? Visit a fucking library, educate yourself, fact check me. I swear-”

Jake shakes his head rapidly. “No, I believe you, I just – why are you helping me?”

The man shrugs. “Call it being a good neighbor.” He drops his cigarette and grinds it into the stone street with his boot. “I don't like suspicious strangers wandering around my town any more than the next guy. So I'm helping you find your way out.”

Ω

Jake had stumbled through the forest for three days, the blood on his head congealing, flaking rank and matting his hair, his lover's name dead on his tongue. He tossed it out between his teeth until his head throbbed too heavily and he collapsed in the grass, creatures on all levels of the food chain leaving him benevolently to his own devices. He passed in and out of consciousness, the days a blur of pain and green when finally the demon revealed himself.

He appeared not in a cloud of black smoke, but a burst of bright white, and Jake stumbled back in awe of him. His jaws parted and for one moment Jake was terrified he would be devoured. But the monster spoke instead.

“You are dedicated,” the green beast said. “Even on the verge of death. You search for your beloved. You have proven yourself worthy.”

Jake's jaw flapped. No sound came out. The demon went on.

“If you will complete a task for me,” the demon explained, “you will get your lover back. Alive.”

Jake spoke blearily, through the fog of shock from the demon's sudden and grandiose appearance and the blood loss. “I thought you said I was worthy.”

“I don't understand,” the demon replied.

“You said I was worthy. If I'm worthy, can't I just have him back?”

He was afraid of the demon's face, a skull with wild, spinning eyes. A sound rumbled through his chest and Jake realized the demon was laughing. “You are worthy of a chance,” the demon clarified. “Completing the task is how you will prove worthy of the regaining the man.”

Jake was upset. He tried to push himself up onto his elbows, tried to get his body out of its prostrate position, but he didn't have the strength. The demon leaned down and Jake bowed his head to escape the horrid flashing of his eyes, which set the sparks of pain in his own skull ablaze.

Jake felt he should protest. He wanted Dirk back so badly, but. “You're evil,” he said, and it was all he could get out, because the demon laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

“Let's make a deal,” the demon said. “You know that demonkind can never go back on its word.”

Jake didn't trust the demon. He said so. With the most delicate of strokes, the demon ran one claw along Jake's head. God, it hurt.

“At this rate,” the demon said, “ _you_ are the one who will not live. To see your beloved again.”

Jake always thought he'd sign his soul away for the people he loved. But it still didn't come easy.

The demon said, “I want you to find somebody for me.”

 


	2. Rootless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> super long chapter

There isn't a single human alive on the continent of Skaia who remembers where humans came from. There isn't a single human alive who remembers what even _happened_ to them, that they they became an endangered race. 

Some cling to ruins left behind, naming their children Hamlet and Genji and Scheherazade, digging through their parents' old attic boxes and traveling to faraway booksellers in the hopes of stumbling across something of their people's distant past. Most, however, merely keep their heads low and try not to get under the skin of the carapaces and trolls with whom they share a continent.

When there is no ancient homeland to return to, you often have to make do with what you've got.

Ω

It wasn't that he didn't _know_ what fathers were. It just hadn't occurred to him that they were terribly important until he was old enough to go to school. His cousin had a dad, but his own mom didn't. And given that the few people he interacted with outside of his family were trolls, fathers seemed superfluous – an added bonus, if you will, but not nearly as necessary as a mother.

Jake's human classmates had been flabbergasted. “You  _need_ a dad to  _exist._ ” Back in those days there wasn't a war, yet. Most kids in a private school as expensive as his still had their fathers.

Jake had frowned. “Trolls don't have dads. They don't even have moms.”

The children rolled their eyes. “Of  _course_ they do. You need a mom  _and_ a dad to be born. Trolls just don't  _live_ with their parents.” And then they – because in Jake's memory they've been warped into an amorphous crowd, talking in ominous unison – gasped. “Did  _your_ father leave you behind? Was he a  _troll?_ ”

“I-I don't know,” he had replied. He'd never even thought he'd had a father, let alone met him, so it seemed perfectly reasonable to Jake that he couldn't rule anything about his identity out.

Jake had always been satisfied with just his mother, but suddenly, trips to his cousin's home came with a strange sensation of rootlessness. Jane's father would wrap her up in his arms, giggling just as hard as her, and. Jake suddenly didn't understand why he couldn't have that, too. A mom  _and_ a dad.

Jade had kissed him on the nose. “I love you enough for a hundred mothers' worth.”

But not a single father's, he noted.

Ω

It has been roughly three months since he last saw his mother's face. There was a town several days' trek and a night in the rain, soaked to the bone, away from the first port town he visited, where he met a dark-skinned, sleek-haired old woman in a marketplace. She looked absolutely nothing like his mother, lacking the green eyes, the button nose, the larger than average front teeth, but there had been creases around her eyes and a kindness in her smile that had made him melt when she asked him if he and his strong arms could help her get her groceries home.

But that had been... gosh. That had been his first week in Derse. The only people he's seen with black hair since have been trolls.

His lungs are burning from a long day's journey (and maybe, a little, from air pollution) and, slumping down onto the first big rock he sees, he thanks his mother for a childhood spent spontaneously camping. They'd take day-trips into the forests together and, when a spot was overwhelmingly stocked with the plant-life she wanted to study or to gather for her potions (often it was both), they'd set up camp right then, although they rarely stopped long enough to sleep. When Jake hit twelve, sometimes he'd just. Sleep outside because he wanted to. He's always liked being outside, and even being forced to camp on the stretches of nothingness between towns (and just outside of town, when his funds started to dwindle) have not diminished Jake's love for the outdoors. If anything, there are times when he feels disappointed to return to the towns and resume his search. He wishes he could just stay in the wilderness, become one with the ferns and river rocks, and forget that he ever embarked on this journey.

Sometimes. Sometimes he feels that.

He shrugs his pack off his shoulders to give himself some rest. The ropes and sticks and burlap clatter against his single pan, and the sound of it, the realization of what it is makes his stomach gurgle noisily. Jake shuts his eyes, counts to three as he smoothes his hands over his muscles and tries to focus on rubbing out the kinks. Three. Four. Five. Don't picture yummy steaks or big cakes smothered in creamy icing. Six. Seven. Eight.

He's still hungry when he opens his eyes, and his limbs are still sore, but he tells himself it's not as bad. His hand goes to the gun in his pocket as he wonders, with spare foliage, with only hills and no forests, if he can find something to eat.

He doesn't worry about bullets. The demon assured him that he would always have enough firepower.

Ω

“Can trolls and humans have babies?”

His mother had laughed. “No, silly. Only members of the same species can have reproduce together.”

Jake felt puzzled. “But... donkeys and horses can have babies. You told me, when we went to that farm. We saw a mule.”

Jade hummed. She was either prepping a potion or a stew – she dropped some sliced potatoes in and Jake supposed it must be the latter. “That's different.”

“So donkeys really _are_ just little, ugly horses?”

His mother laughed loudly at that. “No, they're a different species. But, hm, see, they're similar enough that they... they can make hybrids. Mules aren't donkeys, and they're not horses, but a little of both.” She sprinkled some basil into the pot. “And mules can't have babies of their own, usually.”

“Oh,” Jake replied, frowning. How sad. But then again, maybe not – did animals know they couldn't have babies? Were they aware enough to feel bad about it? He supposed he could ask his mother, but he was thinking about hybrids, and what other creatures could make babies that couldn't have babies of their own.

His mom had said donkeys and horses could reproduce because they were similar, even if they weren't the same. Trolls had horns and weird blood colors so Jake could see why they couldn't reproduce with humans...

Jake was recalling a fairy tale (one he can't begin to specify years later) when he asked, “Can fairies impregnate regular women?”

“Don't call humans regular, dear. And you know fairies aren't real.”

He recalled another story, one that would eventually become even more distant in his memory than the first. “Can demons?”

His mother looked at him funny. “...No demon has shown its face on this continent for years.”

“But _could_ it?”

She looked at him a moment more, something unreadable in her green eyes. Then, with a sigh, she turned down the flame with a wave of her hand, set the ladle aside, and crouched down to her son's level. “What is this about?”

Jake dwiddled his thumbs, suddenly self-conscious. He was afraid to meet her eyes when he asked the question, perhaps because he thought she'd be angered by it. “Was my dad human?”

His mother smiled, the softness of her eyes melting Jake's fears away. “Yes, of course. Is that what you were scared about?”

“I wouldn't say I was _scared,_ ” Jake said with a pout. Worried, maybe. Excited, perhaps, to think magic may flow in his veins in even greater quantities than his mother's talent suggested.

His mother brushed the hair back from Jake's forehead and rested her lips there. “Your father was human,” she said again. Jake waited, thinking she had more to say. But then her lips were gone and she was standing up, returning her attention to their dinner.

“Was he brown like us?” Jake asked.

Her brow furrowed in thought. “Hm. That's a good question. I can't remember.”

“Was he magic?”

“Oh, yes. I think so.”

“Did he love you?”

She shook her head. There was no bitterness, nor any sadness, in her expression. “No. No, certainly not.”

Ω

Jake watches the drifting of the clouds overhead and wonders why he's been thinking of his absent father lately. It's been years since he's cared enough to think about him, let alone to stew over the anguish of his abandonment. But emotions tend to be magnified when we are exhausted, and now, missing several days' worth of meals and sleep, Jake feels the void of his father's absence aching in his ribcage like something has been cut out of him by force. Or – or maybe those are the hunger pangs.

Jake blinks blearily up at the sky, trying to remember the stag he wrestled down the other day, and – no. No, there are no woods here, and no stags, in Derse. The biggest game he's caught for himself here are hares, big hares, they were, grew to nearly the size of small dogs out in the Dersite countryside with no other animals competing in their niche to keep their metabolism in check. Jake had caught that stag when he was younger. Dirk, Dirk had been there for that, not rotting in some. God damn demon's lair in god knows what underbelly of the continent. They'd been, what, fourteen? Fifteen? Jake couldn't remember, but he could remember the rush he'd felt when the creature he thought he'd shot to death had reared up, the antlers still gripped in his hands, and he'd had to hold it down, take a knife to its hide...

And afterwards, when his blood was still rushing through his veins like a river flooding in a storm, he'd kissed Dirk, for the very first time. He'd never felt more sure of a romantic urge before in his entire life. Yellow hair, white skin flushing pink, a stuttered, “Jake, what-” and reality had come crashing back. And then Jake wasn't some rugged outdoorsmen bursting at the seams with arousal of the fight, no, then he was a blushing, apologizing ninny. You didn't just kiss someone without their permission, let alone when you were crowded at the spigot in your mom's back yard, trying to wash deer's blood off your hands.

Jake remembers the taste of venison with a stab of sadness. He wishes he could go out and catch something right now. But he hasn't eaten for days because he hasn't been able to move. His limbs are heavy and his chest prickles uncomfortably.

Something bubbles up from deep inside him and by the time it makes its way out of his mouth, it is a feeble, if slightly crazed, laugh. He's been living outdoors for months, running himself ragged in his search and, really, he should have seen this coming. He should have prepared for sickness, but. There was only ever enough money for the minimum, and. And when he had asked, what about when the money runs out? the demon had said, _I gave you a gun. Use it._

And because he refused to use violence against anything that could talk, Jake had lived off the land as best he could. And now it was trying to kill him, or. No. It was indifferent to him. The rains would soften him and the animals would eat him without a hint of cruelty. The circle of life is apathetic.

He coughs so long and hard that his sides hurt and his throat is raw and tastes of copper. He's going to die here, his mother's face a distant memory, his boyfriend's life gripped so securely in his hands that they are doomed as a unit, even though they will die miles apart from each other. He's going to be responsible for Dirk's death, he thinks, wishing, again, that he'd been more honest with Dirk years ago. Maybe Dirk never would have left the safety of wherever the Striders had been hiding at the time. He'd be out there in the city, still fighting the good fight, and. And Jake wouldn't be laying on some godforsaken stretch of land in a totally foreign country, waiting to die.

The next coughing fit doesn't come alone, and he uses all of his remaining strength to lean onto his side so that he can cough the blood onto his blanket instead of letting it lodge in his throat and suffocate him. When he stops long enough, the exhaustion from the force of his body's convulsions sinking deep into his bones, his actions surprise him. It seems too late to try and delay death, but still. He's deluded enough to hope that, sometime soon, he'll be able to push himself to his feet and, his own blood dripping from his lips, stagger to the next town, seek help.

He doesn't know where the next town is. Laboriously, he reaches for his bag, feels around for his map. Convinced that, maybe, seeing where it is will get him onto his feet.

Five minutes later, the map is crumpled up and pushed, half-heartedly, back into his bag, and he collapses, sprawled so he can feel the burlap pressing patterns into his face, glassy eyes staring ahead at nothing, the fingers of his right hand draped uselessly over the lump in the bag where he knows his gun is. It is a futile gesture of comfort, he thinks, to touch it, now, when he has just learned that everything is hopeless.

The nearest town is fifty miles away. If he tries to walk that, he will die for sure.

Ω

He'd wanted to find his father. He was at the age where one could look at a map and feel the world was just as small, or, even, embark without one at all and think he'd be just fine. He had put his pop gun and a sandwich, unwrapped, messily prepared, into a knapsack and headed out into the wild green yonder of his mother's estate. He'd made it about as far as the road when it started to rain.

Jake shrugged off his knapsack and held it over his head, wondering what to do next. He could return home, but... But heroes never let a little rain stop them, did they? And he was doing this for _family,_ so it was even more vital that he not give up. He marched on, following the road, boots kicking up mud and, as the afternoon carried on, splashing water everywhere. For some reason, it was quite wet next to the road. He looked at the streams of water flowing past him; they were like miniature rivers. He wondered if this went on, if he'd be able to catch fish in them. Feed himself while on his journey to find his dad, since the rain had pretty much soaked through his knapsack, no doubt ruining his sandwich. With a sigh, he lowered his tired arms, slinging his knapsack back over a shoulder.

He didn't think anyone would be using the road because it was so overrun with water, but then, underneath the sound of rain rushing hard and loud and thick, past the leaves of the nearby trees shaking, he thought he heard a whinny.

Jake was tired and wet and freezing cold, and with no leads on his father, he thought it might be about time to call it quits. He stopped walking and turned, yelling out, “ _Hey!_ ” with his hands cupped to either side of his mouth.

But the shape didn't show signs of stopping. It got closer and closer and he yelled and yelled and he thought, by the sway and shift of the horse-drawn carriage coming towards him that it must have finally heard, but the horse was whinnying shrilly and the carriage was swaying dangerously, coming faster and faster and with a panic Jake realized it was about to fall off the road and collide with him.

Bogged down by mud, he tried to run but, oh, it was so close, so loud, and he started to cry because this was dumb, it had been dumb from the beginning and now he'd never get to meet his dad or –

There was a vicious flash of white light and the carriage froze. The horse was close enough that Jake could see the whites of its terrified eyes, could see the rapid contractions of its chest as it hyperventilated. The carriage and its horse were frozen at a perfect 60 degree angle, but slowly, slowly, they drifted into an upright position.

And, as they did, Jake finally noticed the familiar shouts, and a figure with a wand emerged from the woods. “ _Jake!_ ”

Within seconds long, black hair was in his face and his mother's arms were squeezing the life out of him. “Jake... Jake, why would you _do_ that... Why would you run away from me?!”

She pulled away and he saw, through the tangle of hair and streaks of rain that her face was contorted with pain. She sobbed, heavily and openly, and it reduced him to silence.

“Well?!” she demanded.

“I-I don't know,” he lied.

Her lips wobbled. “I-I didn't – D-did I make you feel unloved? Was something wrong? Jake, honey, I was so worried..”

She clutched him close and cried. And the rain poured down. And Jake didn't cry, was too in shock to cry. All he could think, very clearly, was a question to himself: why did he think he needed a father, when his mother was here, and loved him more than anything else in the whole world... whereas his father couldn't even be bothered to come and meet him just once?

Ω

It is dark. But with some labor, he is able to crack an eye open and assure himself that, no, that's not because he's dead, or because his illness has progressed to the point where it has robbed him of his sight.

...For the most part. Everything is blurry. And. White. He blinks, groaning as he does so, for even his eyelids seem sore. He shifts, his body feeling as though it weighs a thousand pounds and has been beaten black and blue. He pats his face and, when no glasses obstruct his hand, he groans again.

A voice, high and musical, comes from the depths of the blurriness. “Oh my goodness! He's awake!”

He hears the padding of soft footsteps' approach, and then there is someone standing next to him.

A cool hand touches his face. “Stay with us, darling. I know you'd like to sleep, and you certainly may, soon, but you're a mystery to us and we'd like to ask you a few questions, if that's possible.”

His eyes flutter shut, and then struggle open again. A thumb brushes his cheek. He bites back the urge to ask, _Mom?_

His vision focusses. The big, grey blob leaning over him starts to sharpen. And sharpen. God, those are... sharp cheekbones, sharp teeth. His eyes wander along the length of her twisting orange horns, noting. Another pair of sharp points.

The troll smiles a sharp smile. Her eyes are very large and very black, like... a kid's. She's only a girl but she seems like an angel as she smiles down at him, her white hair shining like a halo. White hair – it's rare, for a troll to change her hair color, but it suits her. Really adds to the angelic vibe.

“There we go,” she whispers. Every twitch Jake gives seems to make her happier, and even when he tries to sit up and she pushes him back into the covers of his bed, telling him, “No, sweet, stay there,” her grin doesn't falter.

“Who are you?” he rasps.

She smiles gently back. Hands wrap around his and he's surprised by how large, how bony they are. “I could ask you the same thing. Why don't you tell me your name, and I'll tell you mine?”

Jake swallows over a lump in his throat. His mouth is dry, and he can still feel sickness lurking in his flesh, either fading away or waiting for the worst possible time to spring back full force. “Jake. Jake English.”

She looks momentarily surprised, but then the smile is back. “Your accent. You're far from home, aren't you, Jake?”

He doesn't have the energy to even think bout answering that, and so instead he croaks, “Who are you?”

A hand lights on her chest. “Oh, goodness, yes. I'm Callie.” The hand leaves her chest to meet its twin, where it is wrapped around Jake's right hand. He thinks he feels her knead his knuckles. “It's nice to meet you, Jake. We found you out there in the valley, curled up in a tent. We took it down and brought it with us, no worries. All of your possessions are safe. We thought you were dead, but then you rolled over and coughed up a heap of blood – it's been going around, you know, consumption. It's a miracle we found you at all, but wouldn't you know it, that morning, when we set out, I had the funniest feeling, and when I found you, it... it was almost like I _knew._ And just thank heavens for that, because you almost certainly would've died if we hadn't gotten you here in time.”

“Who's we?” Jake croaks. “Where's here?”

She rubs his hands, then lets them go. “I'll explain everything tomorrow. Right now, you need your rest.” Still ever smiling, she reaches down to brush the hair out of his face. At her cool touch, Jake's eyes flutter shut. God. It's been months since anybody touched him in any way.

He falls asleep in record time.

Ω

Later, one of the other women here folds up his coat and sets his bag on top, assuring him, with a hushed voice and a nervous look, that all of his things are in order... including... She swallows when her lips curve over the word, gun, she says, don't use it, don't let anyone know he has it, either, because this is a place of peace, and. He nods, hand resting on the bag. “Thank you, miss.”

“I mean it. Callie would be very upset with you if she knew you brought a weapon here.”

“I didn't deliberately bring it here,” he points out, sourly, and the woman says, “Yes, I know. That's why I haven't taken it from you. You seem too weak and too kind to use it.”

Jake smiles at her reassuringly as she returns to her duties. He is in a room, he's not sure how big, with many rows of beds, and curtains partitioning each section, to give patients privacy. He'd asked Callie to point this place out on a map, and she'd gestured to an unmarked plot of land. “You can't see it on this particular map, but there's a series of valleys here. You were around this area, here, and we're quite nearby, right here.” She smiled that cheeky smile of hers. “This building was built into the base of a hill, actually! When you're feeling better, I'll take you outside and show you. It's quite lovely, quite quaint, this little sanctuary we've made for ourselves.”

Jake was helpless to her cheer; he couldn't hold himself back from returning her smile. “How _is_ it that I'm able to get better, though?” he asked. She'd been about to pour him a glass of water, but he reached out, hands splayed, and she let him have both the pitcher and the glass. He took pride in the fact he was finally strong enough to hold that heavy, metal pitcher, that his hands were steady enough that he barely spilled any. He passed it back to Callie with a grin, tipping the glass to his lips. “Consumption is a death sentence.”

“Not when you've got a great team of healers around,” Callie said, smile turning shy. “I've actually got quite the knack for putting lungs back together.” She shrugged, struggling to seem humble. “In addition to, well, a number of body parts. I don't know, banishing illness is the magic I've always been best at. Perhaps I've grown drunk on my ability to keep death at bay.”

He was impressed. “I'm jealous, on all accounts. That you can use magic and that you can use it to help people.” He set his glass, already drained, on his bedside table. “It's extraordinary, what you people are doing here.”

Her long lashes fluttered and she lowered her face to smile, tenderly, at her hands. Today she was wearing white gloves, to keep herself from catching any germs when she tended to the sick. “It's just regular old goodness. You mustn't let your fellow person die, not when there's something you can do.”

“I'm surprised I never heard of this place,” Jake said. He looked left and right, although the most he could see were the white curtains, his bedside table, the women walking past to tend to others. Callie had told him this building was a fashioned unto a giant circle. Beds lined the back wall, which was broken only by one or two doors leading to inner rooms, in the center of the circle. It wasn't a big building by any means, though it was certainly the biggest place of convalescence that Jake had encountered outside of a city.

“People come from far to visit us,” Callie admitted, “but we don't advertise, and I don't think people talk about us unless there is a need to. Were you ever savagely injured, or this terribly ill, before now?”

Jake frowned, then shook his head. “No, I suppose not. But you'd think someone so talented as yourself would make for a good conversational topic.” He laughed, then. “But people in Derse don't take too well to strangers. I could very well count on one hand the folks who've wanted to chat with me extensively.”

“Even after traveling for _months?_ ” Callie asked, bewildered. “How peculiar! When I first got here, I found the people very personable.”

Jake's eyes widened and his mouth gaped. _You better close those if you don't want a bug to fly in there,_ he could hear his mother's voice jest.

She giggled. “Certainly it's not so strange, to imagine the people of Derse as friendly.”

“No, no,” Jake assured. And then, “Yes. Absolutely, it is, but that's not why I'm gaping like an idiot – you said, when you got here? Do you mean to say that you're from Prospit yourself?”

Callie cocked her head. “Yes,” she said, after a pause. “I lived there for a long while, yes.”

Jake's face nearly split with the force of his grin. “Golly – and here I thought I was all alone!” He waggled a finger at her. “I knew there was something unique about your speech patterns. You're not just a Prospit girl, you've spent some time in Lomax, out west!”

She giggled, a lovely, musical sound. “Oh, yes! I spent most of my time in the city but oh, yes, I stayed in Lomax for some time and I thought it was breathtakingly beautiful, _such_ a peaceful place, the most _lovely_ little homes...”

“Have you seen the castles?”

“The old ones, all crumbled and grown over with ivy? Yes, I found my way back there, once. It was like being in a fairytale.”

“Yes! Yes,” Jake laughed. “Gosh, of anything – well, beside my mother, of course, and my family – I think I miss the _trees_ in Prospit the most. Even the small woodland by the border here is very ominous. I miss... I miss the green, wide spaces, I miss the plants. I miss the wildlife. The land here is so barren!”

“Nonsense,” Callie said, eyebrows knitted. “It's perfectly alive here, just in a very different way. More shrubs... Have you seen the ports, the beaches? They're something of a beauty.”

Jake's chuckles of joy faded enough that he could ask, “But you're so young! Your eyes haven't even changed color yet. How have you traveled so many places?”

“I'm much older than I look,” she confessed, tucking a strand of short, white hair behind her pointed ear. And she _did_ look terribly young. She was a thin thing prone to dressing in androgynous clothes, waistcoats, slacks that only further accentuated how narrow her hips, how flat her chest, and how very petite she was, under the boxy, straight-cut clothing. Her hands were the one thing about her that could be described as large. Her fingers were long and bony, with knobby knuckles. She played with them a lot, tucked them under her legs, into her armpits, unconsciously expressing her dislike of them even when she covered them with gloves.

“What brings you to Prospit?” she asked, and he was suddenly aware of the fact that he was staring at the hands in question. She pulled them into her sleeves a bit, tucked them under her thighs, and he tore his eyes away from them, meeting hers instead. And then he looked at her slim shoulders. And then at the curtain behind her. Thinking.

He said the first thing that came to mind. “I'm on an errand for my boyfriend.”

“Really?” She raised her eyebrows. “What sort of errand-?”

A voice called to her from behind one of the curtains. “Oh- sorry, Jake. We'll talk later, okay?”

He smiled weakly at her. As soon as she was gone, he sighed in relief; he had no idea if she was about to ask him what errand, specifically, or what kind of errand required one to trek across a foreign country, but he wasn't prepared to answer either of those questions. Even though he knew he'd have to lie to her, he didn't want to. He liked this girl. She was the first truly friendly face he'd encountered in months. He didn't want to lose that.

Ω

“You said before that you miss your family. Who did you leave behind in Prospit, if you don't mind me asking?”

Jake waves a hand dismissively. “It's no trouble at all. Hm. Well, my mother raised me on her own. I mean, I suppose my uncles and grandparents helped – before they died, anyway. My grandparents passed from old age when I was really little. My uncle James is dead, too, as is his wife, Cecily. The war with Derse.”

Callie's hand lights to her chest. “Oh my word – I'm so sorry for your loss!”

He shrugs. “I miss them, but I'm more sad for my cousin, Jane. Those were her parents. She's had to live with my uncle John ever since. Not that he's a bad fellow! I love him, it's just...”

Callie smiles sympathetically. “He's not her dad.”

“Yes.” Jake swallows. “I haven't.... been close with my uncle, really, for a while. I'm close to Jane, and because she lives with him, I saw him often, but. He and my mother have a lot of issues with one another. I'm not one to hold grudges, but it's difficult to be chummy with a guy you've seen yell at your mom.” Jake frowns. “Granted, it's not abuse or anything of that sort, and she has yelled back plenty of times, but...”

“She's your mother. You have to take her side.”

“Yes.” Jake feels his face heat up. Callie can read him so well that it's a little... daunting.

He keeps talking, because even as his voice wavers, unsure of how much he can share before he scares her off, it seems like the thing to do. If he didn't known better, he'd think he was being compelled to tell his life story, the urge to confide in her is so unusually strong.

“Then, aside from my blood family, there are family friends, but. I think I miss her, um, my mother, more than anybody else. I feel like it was just the two of us, most of the time – not that we were without other loved ones, as I've made clear, but. We had plenty of time to ourselves. Even before we moved out into the countryside and had no neighbors for miles, we lived on the outer edges of the city. My mother loved people, but she also very much liked her solitude. Save for me and our dogs, there were few people she could stand to be in the company of for more than a few hours at a time.” He pauses, thinks. Then, “Well, I never had very many close friendships, either. I'd say I had three best friends, in my entire life, counting my cousin Jane. So maybe I've taken after my mother in that respect.”

“I find you quite pleasant,” Callie confesses. Jake returns her smile, even as he thinks that it isn't, really, a matter of being pleasant or not.

“What about your boyfriend?” Callie asks, suddenly. “Do you miss him?”

For some reason, the questions catches him so entirely by surprise that he chokes, almost as if the answer is lodged stubbornly in his throat. “Y-yes,” he says, catching his breath in a gasp, “yes, of course.”

“Tell me about him,” Callie says, and it takes Jake a while to gather his bearings.

Dirk. How could he forget to mention Dirk? Normally he'd chalk it up to the pain of bringing him up, but when Jake had been thinking of those he missed most, Dirk had really, truly not come to mind. And he was the loved one that Jake had seen last, before he was forced to embark on this horrible journey. Dirk was the _reason_ he was here in the first place.

Jake swallows. “Dirk is... quite the character.”

Callie frowns. “That's his name? Dirk? Like the revolutionary in the city?”

Terror shoots through his veins, and Jake has to use every ounce of his self control to suppress a panic attack. “Y-yeah, h-his name's Dirk, but, you know, he isn't the same person-”

Callie chuckles. “Oh, of course not! You're a Prospitian boy, you have no business mixing yourself up in some other country's revolution. How would you even have met him?”

Jake forces himself to smile sheepishly back, even as he mentally kicks himself. Idiot! Why the hell didn't he make up a name? He's getting far too comfortable here, and before he knows it, he'll be telling Callie about his contract with a demon and get himself locked up in the nearest loony bin.

Callie keeps on smiling at him, not seeming to notice that anything is wrong. “So? Tell me about _your_ Dirk!”

He looks at her, sitting in a chair at his bedside, hands folded in her lap as if prepared for a great love story. Jake swallows again, then asks, “Could you hand me the pitcher?”

“What? Oh, yes!”

One glass of water and a lot of mental turmoil later, Jake starts. “Dirk was my childhood friend. He and his sister lived with us when they were kids, because. Their parents were fighting in the war.” He didn't specify which war, of course, and on which side. “Their parents didn't come back for them for a very, very long time – we thought they were dead, really – so Dirk, his sister, and me and my cousin, Jane, we formed quite an inseparable group.

“I'd always – I'd always assumed I liked women. Which, I mean, I do, but I've never really gotten a chance to act on it, because, from a pretty young age, I've always dated Dirk. He knew, pretty young, that he liked men. Solely men. And one day, in the heat of the moment, I kissed him, and, I supposed I liked him back, despite what I'd always assumed about myself, and then. And then we've been dating ever since, I guess? I mean, I don't guess, I know, and um.”

Callie's eyes are wide, her expression restrained. “O-okay,” she says, after realizing Jake's abrupt silence isn't a pause. “Um, but, what's he like as a person?”

Jake's eyes fall to his bedsheets, fingers picking at a loose thread for a moment or two. Then, “Stubborn, as anything. And righteous. Terribly righteous.” Jake chews his lip, still examining his hands. “He likes to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders and gets quite offended when you recommend he rest for a while. The only acts of self care he indulges in are his own idea, and it doesn't occur to him to take time off work to look after himself very often. But when he gets an idea in his head, when he makes any old decision, he becomes obsessed with it, even if it's the most convoluted way, or makes no sense to anyone else, or is just a risky idea in general.” Jake pauses. He pictures the noble nose, the light eyelashes, the thin mouth. He remembers kissing a freckle on one of those high cheekbones and watching the prince of Derse turn scarlet and bite his lip. “He's quite rational, though, in that he likes to push his _own_ emotions aside for as long as possible, and in that his convoluted plans have a bizarre efficiency to them.”

As he talks, absently, his hand drifts to where his knapsack hangs off the bedpost by his head, between him and Callie. He touches it simply because it is there. So he thinks.

“He's... I love him, I really do. Maybe not always in the way he wishes I did, but I do. He's one of the most important people in the world to me, or else I wouldn't be here.” Jake sweeps his arm, indicating this hospice, and, in a larger context, Derse.

When he finally returns his attention to her, Callie's eyes are glassy, and she clutches her front so hard that the fabric of her shirt is crumpled. “I can really tell,” she says, smiling as she wipes an eye, “that he's important to you.”

Jake nods, not trusting himself to speak right away. He meant everything he said, he thinks, but, for some reason, he feels... phony. Like maybe all he has said is a nice sentiment, but he isn't living up to it. Like maybe, even as he journeys for hundreds of miles and faces near-death, his lack of passion makes him feel as if his love for Dirk is all talk, and no action. Or, no – all going through the motions, and no... no real conviction.

He couldn't even protect Dirk from a monster.

Jake remembers running through his uncle's yard brandishing a stick, pretending it was a sword, pretending to be a knight in shining armor, and he feels, now, in this moment, like that child playing the hero. He is completely and utterly out of his league.

He physically shakes his head. No time for self-reflection now, not right in the middle of a conversation. “What about you, Callie? Any... romantic conquests?”

She giggles. “Oh no! Not like yours!” She pauses, then, chuckles nervously. “Not at _all_ , actually. I've had my fair share of crushes, but... they always fall through.”

Jake gasps. “Why? Are they positively daft? _Blind?_ You're a knock-out!”

She covers her face with her hands. “I am _not!_ ” she shrills, voice dripping with delight. “I'm not, I'm really not!” She pulls her hands away from her face. A smile tugs helplessly at her lips. “Besides, it's not that anyone's ever rejected me. I haven't given them the chance... I've never _told_ anyone my feelings. There's no use.”

He insists that she's perfectly lovely, and a wonderful person, too, but she starts to push these assurances away with less of a flattered tone of voice and more of a decisive one. She is convinced on this matter. “I mean. I really don't think I'm anything special, but. It's more than that. I have... _had_ an arranged marriage of sorts. Even now, I can't help but think that one day, he'll find me and drag me back.”

Jake frowns. She sounds very sad. And... a little _scared_. That child-hero in him flares up indignantly. “He sounds awful, whoever he is. If I ever meet him, I'll make him regret the day he lays a hand on a damsel like yourself.”

The smile she gives is so sad, so forced that it deflates his own. “That's lovely of you, Jake. Really. But you're in over your head with this person. He's above law, he's above beatings. He won't stop until he finds me, and when he does...”

Her voice trails off. Suddenly, she stands up. “I've got to get back to the other patients.”

Jake watches her retreating back with remorse. “Callie, you – you can rely on me, really.” She stops, although she doesn't turn around. “Even only knowing you a few days, I feel I trust you. I care about your well-being, and – and if you ever need protecting, I really will do my best.” He swallows. “So maybe you can put trust in me, too.”

After a beat, she looks at him over her shoulder. “Thank you,” she says, sincere. “But you'll be leaving soon. You've got somebody else to protect, remember?”

She leaves, bumping into the curtain as she goes. Jake watches it swish back and forth until it comes to a stop, wondering the whole time if he should use his newfound strength to follow her. He decides against it: she doesn't need him getting in the way of her rounds. And he doesn't want to push her trust, not when he's just starting to like her so dearly.

He leans back on the two large pillows the hospice has provided every patient with. The pillows and the sheer thickness of the quilt almost make up for how boxy and thin the mattress is. But really, anything is better than blankets on the ground. He can feel his back ache at the thought of having to resume his journey: the long nights outdoors, exposed to the winds and rain. Having to hunt animals with a confounded _hand_ gun, albeit... an enchanted handgun with infinite bullets.

The feeling of failure, as he treks deeper into Derse, and comes up empty-handed.

He considers asking Callie for a job here. Temporarily, of course. He doesn't want to delay the inevitable, no, he just. Might need a little money, before he sets out again. And not that he can't dig ditches or lift boxes in the nearest town, but maybe his friendship with Callie will give him an advantage getting employed here.

He'll start asking around about the lime troll, too, of course. There are travelers from all over convalescing in this hospice. Someone, if not the travelers, then a chatty nurse, is bound to have heard something.

Ω

Callie explains that, because so little money comes into the hospice by way of donations, it works on a volunteer system. She apologizes profusely for this, but Jake assures her it's okay, and silently considers staying on to help, anyway. It's a place to gather information, if nothing else.

The first day Jake feels well enough, Callie promises to show him around the hospice and its grounds. As he's pulling on his coat, he pauses. His eyes are drawn to his pack. Glancing around to make sure no one is watching, he pulls his gun out of his knapsack and slips it into his coat's inner pocket. As he does so, he feels like he's putting things in their proper place, finds comfort in the weight of it.

He buttons up his coat even though it isn't particularly cold, and just as he's adjusting the top button Callie pokes her head around the curtain. “Hello! Are you ready for our little excursion?”

“Ready for intrigue and adventure,” Jake affirms, bounding towards her.

She laughs her musical laugh. “I'm afraid of letting you down there! This place is rather unexciting. But come on, now, let's carry on.”

She leads him around the circular building only as far as they need to go to reach the inner doors. “I wouldn't want you to catch someone's sick,” she explains, pushing the door to the nurses' quarters open. She shows him the personal beds, the instruments, the herbs, explaining midwifery and potions and where nurse Layea likes most to stack up the novels she's been hoarding, old human ones, the pages yellowed and some ripped out, but it's the mystery of a lost civilization that partly draws her to them. Jake listens carefully, trying not to notice how Callie's hand leaves sparks in its path when she hands him a spellbook to briefly hold. It's thick and leather-bound, and looks nothing like the sleek volumes his mother kept. “Dark magic users,” Callie says with a sigh, “they like everything rustic and torn. I can't read this one, I don't know the language.”

A white magic girl, in Derse. Jake, thinking of his mother yet again, is about to ask her more, but then she's leading him back to the door, and then they are walking past beds and towards another door, this time to the outside of the hospice.

The valley is wide and very, very green, and Jake feels instantly relieved. Closing his eyes, he sucks in a deep breath. He's been cooped up inside for, what – a week? Two? And all that time he hardly realized how much he missed the fresh air. Must've been the influence of certain company.

They stand side by side for a minute or two, just looking at the dips and bends of the earth before them. Jake turns briefly, once, to regard the door to the hospice behind him, the two windows, the door, embedded in the grassy hillside like a faerie's house, but there is little other evidence of the hospice's existence. The hill is a good ten feet tall and about a hundred feet wide, and a lumpy, inconsistent shape. He turns to ask Callie how they ever carved their space out of the hill, dying to know even when he probably wouldn't understand a technical explanation, but she's leading him on again.

“This way,” she says, pointing to green valleys beyond. “I've got a wonderful surprise for you.”

“Shall we have an adventure after all?” Jake asks with a grin. She gives him an equally cheeky one back. “Perhaps,” she says. Then, grabbing his hand, “Come on!”

He watches the joy in her face as they bound down the hills together, her laughter lighting the air like flirtatious birds' songs. Her overcoat today is green like a ripe pear and her pants are the color of grass and with her short, white hair, like lilies' petals, she looks as if she belongs to this valley, to nature.

She leads him over and around the bends of earth, and when they round a corner, they come upon... Jake almost stumbles at the sight of it.

Trees. The tallest one only reaches about Jakes eye level, but. There they are, all the same. They seem to go on for miles and miles, red fruit hanging from their branches.

“You said you missed trees,” Callie says, beaming. “Well, Derse just so happens to have the perfect climate for pomegranates!”

“My word,” Jake murmurs. He steps forward, lets himself get close enough to touch one of the fruits. It's the most magnificent shade of red he's ever seen... but maybe he only thinks that because he's been cooped up in the hospice – in Derse itself – for so long.

“See there?” He follows Callie's finger to the horizon. “There are some elms further out. See how tall they are?” She smiles at him. “It's not a _forest,_ quite. I think this place used to be a commercial orchard, but at some point, it was abandoned. Not many people come around here anymore – well. Aside from us.”

Jake can barely speak. He can't believe this. “Out there,” he asks. “Is there – is there a stream?” He thinks he can hear it, in the distance, but for all he knows it is a happy hallucination.

“A very little one. It runs pretty far – I think there's a lake miles out there, but I haven't looked yet. Not enough time in the day. Too afraid of getting lost.” She gives a sudden, excited noise, tugs on his sleeve. “Oh, but the stream, it leads into a cave! Let's go look!”

Ω

It's like a dream – he's chasing an unconventionally beautiful troll girl through thick, low-hanging leaves, whooping with laughter pulled from deep within his chest. Finally, he is leaving behind the dank misery of begging for leads in bars and trudging, unwashed, through strange and unfriendly cities, and dying alone in the rain for this – this _true adventure_ , this veritable paradise. He feels like the child hero again as he and Callie come to rockier, more mountainous hills and find the cave, splashing in the feeble trickle of water the “stream” makes at its mouth. Except he doesn't feel foolish. He feels... _alive._

Callie walks with her hand to the wall, which Jake mimics. The surface is cold, wet with moisture that's escaped into the air. The cave is pitch black in its depths, and Callie warns him to watch his step just as she slips -

He can't catch her before she falls, hits her head hard on the stones, and he scrambles down to help her up. “I'm fine,” she insists, clutching her head. “I'm fine-”

He grabs the hand she has pressed to her head without thinking, frantic, checking her wound and. There's green, on her hands. He almost thinks it's moss until he sees the cut on her forehead, the color clinging to her white hair.

It's the lighting. It's got to be the dim lighting in here, but. Jake has never. _Ever_ seen a troll bleed that shade of green.

Callie's voice is fearful. “Jake? Are you going to be sick-?”

Her inquiry tapers off into a scream as he wrenches a hand over her mouth, holding her still. She struggles against him, arms flailing, shouting questions against his hand as he uses his free arm to reach into his pocket.

She starts to cry when the barrel of the gun presses against her head. “Are you a limeblood?”

He pulls his hand from her mouth, sure to keep his arm like a vice around her arms and midsection. She gives a loud sob. “J-Jake-”

“ _Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?_ ”

“You're not _colorblind,_ are you?!” she shouts. Her voice echoes, hoarse, off the cave walls. “Jake, Jake _please_ -”

“Be quiet!” he snarls, digging the barrel into her temple. The glow of it against her skin makes her blood color only that much more apparent. Shit. _Shit._

“P-please, let me go, let me go-”

She shrieks as he pushes the gun into her forehead hard enough to bruise, his arm's grip tightening around her midsection. “Be quiet – be _quiet_ Callie! I-it's useless to cry out, no one will hear you out here!”

“I won't tell anyone,” she sobs. “Please, _please_ let me go, I won't send _anyone_ after you just _please_ let me go!”

He muffles her sobs with a hand, wrapping both of his arms around her to keep her still. He's sure to keep the gun pressed to her gut, now. He's never felt so sick in his entire life.

“Listen here,” he whispers in her ear. “I'm – I'm sorry. I'm dreadfully sorry. I'm so, so sorry but you _have_ to come with me.”

His voice sounds frantic to his own ears and her tears overflow, wetting his hand. He pulls her nearly limp body out of the cave, still whimpering, and drags her through the orchard, into its depths, not a map or a tent in his possession. It's just Jake, Callie, and the gun the demon gave him.

Ω

“I know trolls don't really think about fathers that much, and... I suppose I didn't either, until a certain age. But when I did start thinking about him, I felt... rootless.

“Even though I had my mother, we were always moving around. Always exploring, always going new places – it was fun, but there were times when I looked at Jane and her parents and I looked at my uncle John, and there were grounded. They had one house for months and years at a time.”

Callie had hummed. “They were trees, and you and your mom were dandelions...”

Jake had chuckled at the metaphor. “Lovely, yes.” Then, after a pause, “I suppose I feel much that way now, too. I'm without direction. Wandering aimlessly. Connected to no one.”

Despite their shared nicety, the troll girl frowned. “But just because you don't know where to go, that doesn't mean you're rootless. You've got Dirk – you've got that secret quest of yours you won't let me in on, all for him. That, in itself, is something to hold on to, isn't it?”

Three days later, when he and Callie are soaked to the bone, sitting beneath an elm while, even in exhaustion, he holds a pistol to her neck, he thinks of this conversation. She was right – Dirk is his root. He is what ties Jake to this rotten world, this place of dark magic and demons and government gone bad, this... Derse.

And, as he's recently discovered. Dirk is someone for whom Jake's willing to do.  _Anything._  To save.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, shit


	3. The Kidnapping of Persephone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter's late! i had vacation and i was under the impression i still had to change something in this chapter before i put it up. i mean, i just now ended up changing something i'd never planned on editing, but w/e, it probably would've been fine if i left it how it was yesterday and posted it on time

There's a story humans used to have, before their continent and, with it, most of their history, disappeared into oblivion. A story saved in scraps, a story passed down orally from laymen to laymen until the intellectuals stole it and wrote it down in bulky, unnatural language, only for it again to flourish by word of mouth when those intellectuals and their records were all wiped out by any number of natural and unnatural disasters. The memory of this story would probably evoke a chuckle of recognition from our hero now, if he had ever heard of it (which he hadn't), and if this were a situation in which it would be appropriate to laugh (which it isn't).

Although he couldn't remember, our hero _had_ in fact heard a highly butchered version of the tale that sprang from Alternian mythology. It had nothing to do with explaining the seasons, nor mother and daughter goddesses, nor manipulative and lonely gods. In fact, without a lot of squinting, the two myths seem entirely unrelated. It's understandable, why this story will not spark any sort of recognition with our hero.

When the world was young, there were only twelve trolls. One of each caste. They fought, fell in love, formed intense friendships, and occasionally stepped in to stop one from killing another. But unlike the other creatures that walked the earth, they could not produce children.

One day, the jade-blooded woman decided to explore the place where the mountains and hills ended and the desert stretched out like a still, yellow sea. It was a place with little cover, little protection from the sun, and so she promised herself she would not go far, that she would escape by sunrise.

The sand stuck to her toes and the little lizards and reptilian lusii skittered away from her approach. Eventually, she stumbled upon the edge of a sand dune. Down in its center, embedded in quicksand, was a massive, insect-like lusii. She cried out to the troll for help, and, without hesitation, the troll woman tore her own clothes and fashioned a rope. The lusii bit down on the rope and the troll used all of her strength to pull her free. The troll woman brushed the sand from the lusii's hide and checked for wounds, gently palpating the flesh that had been trapped in the sand.

The lusii was so touched by the troll woman's selflessness that she bestowed upon her the ability to survive the harsh sun and heat of the desert in the daytime, and then more: “For saving my life, I shall save you _and_ yours. Bring your lover or your rival here, and I will give you a child.”

From then on, the jade-blooded woman would take trolls to visit the mothergrub and then remain in the desert for the gestation period, the warmest, driest period of the year, tending to the young. It wasn't until the empire rose up and took control of breeding that jade women were no longer allowed to leave at the end of the season, and were trapped in murky caverns hidden deep in the desert with the empire's larvae until the day they were replaced by another daughter of their caste.

It doesn't matter whether the Alternians or the humans thought of these plot threads first, or if they stole them from yet another people, or if they independently thought of these stories all by themselves. What matters is that, for all that they have deviated from each other, every myth has a common thread. Stories are bound in something older and far more potent than blood.

Ω

She cries for hours as he drags her, deeper and deeper, into the orchard. What were once neat rows of trees have dissolved into tangles of roots and patchy areas of thick vegetation punctuated by sparser areas. They have to watch their step, or risk tripping over the roots, gnarled and expansive like horrorterror's limbs.

All the while, Jake asks himself,  _What am I doing?_ He's not allowed to feel numb, not when he has to keep tabs on a struggling prisoner, but his ears ring with the question and he feels like the ground is sliding away from his feet.  _What in the hell am I doing?_

At one point, he reaches up, takes a fruit, and offers it to her, mumbling that they haven't eaten for hours. Her fingers tremble as she takes it and she begs him, whispering this time, to let her go. He swallows his heart and tells her, again, that she needs to eat. The seeds and pulp get everywhere, and they look positively carnivorous, covered in red debris. He sucks the juice off his fingers and winces at how he tastes like he hasn't washed in ages. He hasn't dipped his hands in a source of water since the stream back at the cave. He uses his free hand to nudge her with the gun, to ask, “Where's the nearest water?” and, her eyes wide and glassy, she points in the direction of the stream, which, incidentally, is in the same direction as where the hospice lies, far beyond their line of sight.

He chews his lip. Thinks. Then, “You said there might be a lake. We'll go there.”

As the hours stretch on, she struggles less and less, but she is always trembling. Jake has his hand on the back of her neck and a gun in his other hand, swinging at his side, and he is tense, waiting for her to try to fight him off, to run away. She struggled earlier, a few times, but then Jake, panicked that her cries may draw people to them, struck her with the pistol, and her cries became quieter and farther between. She was strangely adept at swallowing her sobs, making them inaudible, and it disgusted him, how easy it was for him to hurt a woman, this woman with whom he'd been friends until just hours ago.

When the two of them have glutted on wild fruit, they carry on again, knowing that the feeling of satiety will wear off soon. Jake knows they need something more substantial to eat, but compared to his journey so far, this orchard, with as many pomegranates as they could ever hope to eat, seems like a blessing.

As the sun sets, Jake repeats two prayers silently to himself: one, that it will not rain as it did earlier, and two, that his childhood camping with his mother has prepared him to navigate this place without a map and to survive on it without a tent. He figures his prayers won't be answered, given he is too far gone to be worthy of divine intervention.

He asks her for the location of the nearest town, and her teeth chatter almost too hard for her to answer. If it's more from fear or cold, he can't tell. It's windy and their clothes are still wet from the rain, and now the dark means there is no sun to dry them.

“I-I don't know,” she answers, “N-not from here. I-I know how to get there from the hosp-”

“ _Which direction?_ ” he presses, his voice sounding alien to his ears. She stutters, then, “E-east, over the hills. B-but I think we're too far in, I d-don't know if we can get around the rockier parts-”

“We'll find a way,” he cuts in.

They trudge on. His legs are burning and his arms are tired, hence letting his gun swing from one hand, the hand he has clenched on her neck starting to hurt fiercely from being held in one position for so long. He's not sure what they'll do by night fall. Unless he comes across some ropes or this gun can magically transform into some kind of shackle, he doesn't know how to keep her from running away.

He wonders, for the first time, why she doesn't attack him with her power. He wonders why she's making this all so easy on him.

“H-hey, Jake...” She pauses to stumble. He's leading her roughly. But he doesn't tell her to shut up right away. “You know, a-all of those folktales, about, um, limebloods... they're not _true._ I don't know what those people are offering you, but-”

“It makes sense to me now,” Jake cuts in. “I've never been the fastest-witted person. But I should've known it, that it takes more than some herbs to heal someone's deathly disease.” His lips curl, not in a sneer, but. A grimace. His eyes are tired and he stares ahead into the darkness, the trees “You're powerful. You're incredibly powerful and I can't believe I didn't suspect it earlier.”

“B-but it's not my blood,” she whimpers. “I-it's got nothing to do with my blood. So whatever these men are offering, for you to bring me in, I'm telling you, it isn't _worth_ it! Cutting me up will do nothing but _kill_ me, lime b-bloods have got nothing in their veins that can be used for p-potions or ointments please, _please_ let me go, don't sell me to those people, please don't take me to the capital-”

“We're not going to the capital,” Jake answers, curtly. “I don't work for the queen.”

She tries to get up into his space, to plead with him while making eye-contact, but he uses his grip on her neck to wrench her away from him. He hears her cry of pain and thinks she'll give up, but she's more determined than that.

“Then _please,_ _listen_ to me when I say that whatever bounty hunter is after my blood, I-I'm _not real!_ ” Her breath comes hard and fast. “Even if the folk tales about lime blood were true, _I'm not real,_ I don't _have_ those properties-”

“I know,” Jake utters. She's so stunned that she's paralyzed for a moment, and his steady pace, his hand on her neck nearly have her falling forward onto the ground. Instead she stumbles again.

Her mind is a whirr, he can tell. Apparently, the demon isn't the only one looking for lime bloods, no surprise there, and she thought Jake was working with cannibalistic trafficking of some sort. Jake wonders at her shock, wonders if she knows who he's really working for. All the demon told him was to find a girl with lime blood – he never clarified if he and she knew each other well.

Callie stutters. “But... But if you know I'm fake, then why-”

To his surprise, he is genuinely angry. “Would you... would you just shut up?!” He cuffs her on the head and she does just that, lips wobbling even as she tries to keep them pursed. He resolves not to look at her face again for as long as he can. It's easier not to empathize that way.

He recognizes the first spatter of elms easily. Legs ready to dissolve from the build-up of lactic acid, Jake grabs the collar of Callie's jacket and drags her to sit at the base of the biggest elm nearby.

He shakes the gun in her face and tells her to sleep. She looks like she wants to say something, opens her mouth, eyes on the gun, but he presses it closer and she cowers down into the tangle of roots and soil to sleep.

Jake watches her for a long time. It must be the adrenaline that manages to keep him awake for as long as it does. But it doesn't last.

Ω

He awakes to the sound of frantic breathing, of hard footsteps, and he reaches out and feels nothing but dirt and empty space beside him.

Jake jumps to his feet without hesitation, and is thankful for the glow of the gun and the brightness of the full moon when his eyes are able to quickly adjust to the darkness. Callie is several yards ahead of him, damn easy to spot with those tall orange horns of hers, and running. He immediately races after her, anger and terror pumping in his veins as his one shot at getting Dirk back threatens to escape him.

She isn't an athlete by any means, but she has a head start on him, and it is dark, and they are both exhausted. After nearly bumping into yet another tree trunk, he stops himself, lifts the gun, aims.

The gunshot is louder than it ever has been and it terrifies her so much that she falls to her knees, and he thinks, for one horrible minute, that he has hit her. And then he is running.

He runs and runs through the darkness, flying over roots and fallen fruit, and as she's struggling to her feet he throws himself bodily at her, tackles her.

He has her on her back, and inspects her for injuries. The relief that sweeps through him when he realizes that he didn't shoot her is immediately usurped by shock at her loud, hysterical scream. Callie cries, loud and hard, and she struggles viciously against him. Jake clenches his hands hard around her wrists and bears his weight down on her.

He screams in her face,  _“BE QUIET!_ ” and she is, more so, anyway, because she keeps whimpering, but she can't seem to help it and her cries are softer, now. He leans in, sure to let her see his lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl, his eyes that are unafraid to meet hers.

“I shot at you,” he hisses. “I shot at you and if you try to get away from me again, I _won't miss_.” He is afraid of the force in his own voice, is afraid of how convincing he sounds, and she wails. She wails and struggles against him, but he shouts again, clenches again, and her sobs fade off into hiccups, into an odd, shrill noise of terror, as if she's only just barely holding herself back, but occasionally cannot help but let it all slip out at once.

He tells her he will kill her if she tries to leave him, says that if he cannot have her, he will make sure that no one will. And then he yanks her to her feet, and, arm under her ribcage, pulls her along. It hits him how much bigger he is than her – not just in height, but in muscle mass, even after has has laid dying for the past several weeks. Even without using the gun, which he has jammed up against her kidneys, he could overpower her, he could hurt her.

He doesn't hit her. He drags her back in the direction of the elms, perhaps a little deeper this time, and then, gripping her by the horns, throws her to the ground. She lands on her hands and knees. This time, when he commands her to sleep, she curls up into a ball, hands over her head and rubbing at the base of her likely sore horns, her body shaking, her vitals covered to the best of her ability.

Jake is surprised that he falls back asleep that night. But when he awakes, suddenly, synapses firing, ready to fight or run or whatever need be, he looks over and sees Callie there beside him. She is awake, and she stares at him, her eyes like saucers. Her arms are folded over her chest, and she's sitting, crouched, rocking on her heels. She looks ready to run, but. She doesn't run.

He starts to stand, and before he can tell her to get up, she's up, and she stands by his side, eyes fixed on him. The sight of it makes his heart clench, but. He's not her friend, he's not her caretaker.

He grabs her by the arm and she lets him, without resistance.

Ω

It isn't as much of a relief as he was hoping it would be when they reach the lake.  _Huh,_ he notes, dully,  _it's really more of a pond._ But that's about it. He walks part of its perimeter before he grows too tired of walking and being cautious, and, careful to fold up his coat and pants and set them aside, he throws himself into the water, where it is shallow.

It's cold. He drinks it deep and wets his hair. It is pond water, so naturally it tastes foul, but he is thankful that the industry that darkened Derse's sky never made its way out here or it'd be even worse for him.

He stands near the shoreline, looking out at the surface of the pond, so still, so incredibly clear, and then, hair dripping, he turns back around and gets out of the pond. He sits on the rocks beside Callie, who has rinsed her hands, wiped off the blood that has been smeared on her face for days, and he asks her, almost forgetting that she's his prisoner, if she knows how to heal people without the herbs and the wand.

She licks her lips. “Yes,” she admits. “But it takes longer, and it's harder.”

He nods. “Then your cut won't get infected? Even with this to clean it?” He gestures out at the water.

She shrugs. “Probably not.”

They watch the pond together, as if waiting for something. Something stirs in a mass of cattails on the farthest side, but nothing so much as a toad emerges. After a while, Jake gets to his feet. “I'm going to see what I can do about shelter. You stay here.”

And by the time he gets back in a few hours, with no idea what to do for shelter and instead carrying as many pomegranates as he can in his shirt, well. She has stayed. Her eyes are weary and the skin on her forehead is as smooth as though she never fell in that cave, but then, if that'd been the case, they wouldn't be here. They'd be at the hospice, and she and Jake would be chatting it up, planning their next day trip together. Maybe even to this very same pond.

He offers her a fruit and she takes it, holding it in her hands, but not really making a move to eat it yet. After setting the rest of the batch he's gathered higher up, so they don't tumble into the water, Jake takes one and rinses it, bites right into it and tears away the outer layer with his teeth. Using this opening, he pulls it open, muttering, “Shucks,” when he pulls too hard and some seeds spill out, tumbling onto his shirt. Well, it looks as though the clothes he got from the hospice will soon be stained and dirt-smeared. Not anything he's not used to by now.

He doesn't have money with him anymore, he realizes – when he and Callie reach the nearest town, he'll. He'll have to steal some new clothes, or.  _Something._ And food, and camping gear. He wishes he had had time to plan this, but he didn't, hadn't for all the months he'd been out in Derse even dreamed about what the hell he'd do if he actually  _found_ who he was looking for, and now he just has to do his best to figure things out as they go along.

Callie breaks into the storm in his head. Her voice is as clear as the pond water and the least afraid it's been since he grabbed her in that cave. “If we met under different circumstances. If you'd never found out my blood color, or. If you'd never been sent after me, or if I didn't  _have_ this blood. And we still met. Do you think we could've been friends?”

She stares into his face, not with any intensity of emotion. She still holds the pomegranate Jake handed her, pressed between her palms.

Jake purses his lips and looks away. Bites his tongue to keep from pointing out that, up until she'd bled in front of him, they  _had_ been friends. Had been starting to be, anyway.  “Is there any use picturing other circumstances? I'm... I'm kidnapping you. This is the circumstance any ordinary person would be judging my character on.”

“You seemed so nice,” Callie says. “Back at the hospice.”

He doesn't know what to say to that, really. So he tells her to shut up. And she does, leaving him to the mass of silence that has settled over the pond. He wishes a wind would at least pick up. That some birds would sing. But it's quiet, here.

Ω

“Let me tell you a story.”

“You don't have to do that...”

“No, no. Let me! I'm not the best at stories, but you're in so much pain and I feel so terrible... maybe I'll be so awfully boring I can at the very least lull you to sleep!”

He had chuckled into his hand. “Nonsense, I'm sure you're just being modest.”

“Okay, okay.” She had fidgeted, then, in that little chair she had kept at his bedside. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with excitement. “This is one I've been working on for a while. I've never shared it with anyone, so you _must_ promise to be gentle, okay?”

Jake had laughed. “What sort of brute do you take me for? Of course I'll be gentle; you don't tear a story to shreds when a lovely a lady has summoned the courage to share it with you. It's just not civilized.”

He had watched from his bed as she spread her hands out. For once, he was welcome to look at them, as they moved with a grace and an abstract purpose that he felt, rather than knew, was vital to the act of storytelling.

Ω

She's manipulating him, he realizes. But as the story of a friendship that could have been washes over him, as her hand strokes his hair, he thinks of happier times. Of their friendship, back at the hospice, for one. With a roof over their heads and not a single star glittering in the great black expanse, trying its best to peek at them through the smog and remind them of the vastness of the universe, Callie had told him several stories to keep him company at night.

Her fingers are unfairly gentle, and he thinks of his mother and knows, knows Callie is trying to use kindness to manipulate him. But for now, all he can think of is being five, his mother reading him stories of dashing knights saving princesses, changing the details so the princes were black-haired and tan-skinned like him. He thinks of being ten and sick as a dog, his mother telling him, for the thousandth time, the story of a mother reborn again and again who, every time, would pick the same little boy out of trillions in the universe to be her son. He thinks of being fifteen, Dirk whispering, against his ear, revolutionary praxis, quoting this and that philosopher and, sometimes, when the lighting was lower, when they were breathing heavier and laying closer together, the many things they were about to do together.

Jake knows Callie is trying to buy time, and he lets her lull him into a fitful sleep, her whispering voice morphing into his mother's into Dirk's, and then, finally, as he sinks into a deep, deep dream, the voice of a stranger.  _Once upon a time, there was a girl named Callie and a boy named Jake and they were friends._

Jake is not prophetic, and so it hardly matters what he dreams of. He never really remembers them, and never really cares to, anyway. The ones he does are too confusing. He finds them more stressful then anything, and so in his youth, he had taught himself to tune them out. To forget them the moment he opened his eyes in the morning.

Ω

When he wakes up, his head is in Callie's lap, and she is asleep, still, slumped into the tree trunk against which she was sitting when she was trying to make him rest. It'd been her idea – if his head was on her lap, she couldn't escape in the night without letting him know. He quickly gets up, feeling ashamed. He's standing about three feet away when she starts to stir. With a groan, she reaches for her neck, starts to rub it. Her position and the weight of her horns have no doubt given her a horrific ache.

“We're working together today,” Jakee says, surveying the pond. “I don't know how long this good weather will last, but we can't count on it. We don't want to die of exposure.”

“I don't want to die at all,” Callie says. Then, “You only just got over a bout of consumption yourself. Dying now would just feel like a terrible rip-off.”

“Well. You wouldn't let your talents go to waste,” Jake says, still not meeting her eyes. “You'd do everything in your power to save me, and you know it.”

“You're right.” She actually chuckles, then. “I'm just too nice, I suppose. Call it a weakness if you'd like, but I've always felt that my kindness was my most charming feature.”

He chews on his lip. Scratches his hair. “Why are you doing this, Callie?”

“Doing what-?”

“Why are you trying so hard to get chummy with me, hm?” He turns to her, then. She's trying hard to smile at him, to look sweet, but they are both dirty, with barely a dip in the pond to rinse themselves off these last few days. She is visibly tired, her eyes sunken deep into her face. It would be obvious to anyone that she is not in control of this game but pathetically grasping at it as a last resort.

She tries to say something, but he won't hear it. “I'm not that nice boy you met at the hospice, yeah? I'm not some... some babbling, stupid thing with a hero complex and daddy issues, lost in Derse and in need of coddling.”

“But you _are_ lost,” she whispers. Even as gentle as she is when she says it, it makes him see red.

He steps close to her, jabs a finger at her. “Stop,” he says. “Just...  _stop._ I'm not going to come to my senses and let you go. Every nicety I've ever extended to you is no longer available to you – the  _moment_ I realized who you were, that became impossible. So don't even try to get on my good side.”

Her eyes are fluttering faster now, tears welling up in her eyes. “B-but I know you weren't lying, you  _are_ that nice boy, you  _do_ truly love your mother a-and your cousin and your boyfriend-”

“Yeah!” he shouts, loud enough to startle her. His hands are stretched out, wide, on either side of him. He shouts louder still. “ _Yes!_ I love him! Do you want to know how much?” He stares at her, jaw clenching and unclenching when she doesn't answer, simply staring at him with glassy eyes. “I love him enough to choose him every time! It's him or you and, surprise, I've chosen the love of my life over some fucking _stranger._ So don't... try to bat your eyelashes at me, don't bother trying to kill me with kindness, because you're not getting through to me! You're doomed, so you might as well give it up!”

She bites her lip so hard with those sharp teeth, it's really trolls' biology alone that keeps her from bleeding. “Y-you can't trade one life for another, it's not fair-”

“I don't care about being fair,” he snaps, “I care about saving Dirk!”

Even though he wants to leave her here, so he doesn't have to look at her, to feel so guilty or so angry, he knows he has to keep an eye on her. So he grabs her by the arm and hauls her up. “Come on – we have work to do!”

Ω

He's gathering wood about a hundred feet away when he hears her shout. “Oh, no – how awful!”

Without a second thought, Jake drops everything and races towards her voice. Everything about her is easy to spot through the trees – her green clothes, her white hair, her tall, orange horns and gray skin. She's got a bundle of sticks in her hand and she's standing at the base of one of the tallest trees in the area, looking up, frowning profusely as she does so. When Jake reaches her side, panting, she points to one of the lower branches.

“Look,” she says. It takes him a moment to figure out that it has nothing to do with being hurt or found by others, but. Instead there's a nest. In it, there are three very small, still partially pink little birds, barely visible due to the fourth, who is large and thick-feathered and looks fully grown.

Callie pouts. “It's a cuckoo,” she says. “It's going to eat those little ones out of house and home.”

“Not if its weight doesn't crush them first,” Jake points out. She flashes him a hurt look and he sighs. “Come on, we have work to do. Take that wood you've got back to camp. I'm going to have to stay out longer because you made me drop mine.”

“How am I to blame...?” but she catches his look and falls quiet. “Alright,” she murmurs. She looks over her shoulder at him as he goes, and it isn't until she's out of sight that Jake realizes he was reaching for his gun pocket.

Ω

He kills the whole nest and she cries about as hard as she did when he first grabbed her in the cave. “Come on,” he says, fire roaring between them, “eat. You need the protein.”

“I don't _eat_ meat,” she sobs. She buries her face in her hands. “How could you _kill them?_ ”

He fumbles for the right words. “W-well, I mean, they're just babies, so they couldn't fly away. I just snapped their necks and-”

Whereas she was bent over, her face in her hands, she brings her head up in a flash, her eyes wild and angry and fixed on him. “Not  _literally_ how!  _Why_ how! Why  _ever_ would you kill them when we have plenty to eat?”

“It's all part of the ruthless kidnapper package,” Jake grumbles. He's not going to let her guilt trip keep him from eating. She's his hostage. He isn't obligated to please her. Which, stupidly, he had thought killing the cuckoo would do. But you couldn't fill your stomach on one damn baby bird, no matter how oversized, so he'd thought... he thought he'd put them out of their misery. Apparently that was the wrong way to go.

He tells her the part about putting them out of their misery, desperate to salvage the trust of a person who will probably never have a reason to trust him ever again. “The cuckoo would've just made them die extra slow and painful. This was quicker.”

“You can't just _decide_ that,” she sobs, “you can't ever just end a life! You're not doing the right thing just because the alternative for _them_ seems worse to _you!_ ”

She cries when he takes the first bite, turns her face away when he peels seared meat from bone. He berates her for her sensitivity, but after that, it is a while before he eats meat again.

Ω

Later, when she has calmed down, she makes a little mass grave for the leftover bones. She smooths pomegranate juice over the freshly upturned earth in meaningless patterns, presses seeds in, sprinkles pond water over top, and when he tells her she's overreacting she insists, eyes green-rimmed, on the importance of burial rites. His nails are filthy from preparing the grave.

He sees her cower when he raises his hands to drop seeds onto the dirt and wonders, not for the first time, if it means anything, that the demon employing him shares his name.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for commenting & giving kudos!!!!!!! ur my life blood


	4. Persephone Plays Scheherazade

Before we cover the oncoming apocalypse, it is important to discuss the the birth of the universe. After all, how can one begin to understand the end, if they haven't even read the beginning?

And if we're going to talk about the birth of the universe, it's pertinent we talk about those players who have been around since the beginning. Who better to impact the story than those who have made it through its entirety? In approaching a plot point as all-encompassing as The End, one might as well go over an entire roster of important players. Cover as much ground as one can.

While one still can.

Ω

“Once upon a time, there was a monster who, if you called his name, would lose all of his monstrous power. The problem was, only one person knew his name. And she disappeared a long, long time ago. Many even say that he killed her to prevent his downfall.”

He makes sure to balance what he's building before he answers. “You still haven't finished the story from last time.”

She flinches away from the sound of his voice, as if from physical blows. “I-I know, but...”

“Finish that one first.”

Every time he talks, she jumps, rattled so thoroughly that her voice shakes as if it is water rippling in response to a violent splash. “I-it doesn't have an ending, yet. I-I haven't decided on one.” She doesn't say, I don't know if I ever will.

He sighs. He couldn't even get as far as she could, really, as he's never had a penchant for narratives, but he still wants answers. “Maybe instead of wasting energy on a new story, you could just think of an ending for the other one.”

“But I don't know how,” she confesses. “I've never finished a story before. I try and try, but it never goes anywhere, and. I mean, they're just to get you – um, us to fall asleep. Why do you even care if they have an ending?”

When the twigs and logs collapse right in his hands, he doesn't curse, because he never curses. But he does spitefully step on one of the fallen branches. _Because I've been aimlessly wandering through this forsaken country for months, and even now that I've reached my short-term goal, I've still got to keep you from escaping, and I've got hundreds of miles to recover, and each one seems to go on forever, and, I don't know, I don't know, but I'm tired of stories that stretch on forever with no conclusion and I just want to know that everything will eventually come to an end._

Jake says, “Never mind. Please just help me with this.”

Ω

She smells like sweat. He tells her so and she winces, mumbles something about the pond being awful and dirty, anyway. She usually talks of nature as though every parasite and poison oak is a blessing, but Jake knows a pond is a far cry from a real bath, and so he doesn't find her sudden disdain for it suspicious. He tells her they're moving on soon and if she wants to get clean, she should, now.

Her lips wobble, her eyes grow wide and glassy. “R-right now? In... in front of you?”

It doesn't hit him at first, but when it does, it's as if she's actually slapped him. Of course. He forgot the assumptions that may follow you when you become a ruthless kidnapper.

“ _No,”_ he snaps, realizing he's more offended than he deserves to be, “We're not leaving _right_ this second, so just... just clean yourself up!” He storms away to the line of trees, thinking he'll gather fruit or wood for a fire or, hell, just kick a few blasted plants, grind them into the ground with his boots.

He's about a hundred yards into the mass of trees, inspecting a bruised pomegranate for worm holes when he hears a rustling in the distance. There are some birds who live in the area, and a hell of a lot of crickets that never shut up at night, and a garter snake, once, let Callie lovingly run her hand along it, but a fox, hell, even a rabbit, would be something of a luxury. As he pulls his gun from his pocket, he wishes for a knife; if it _is_ something with fur, if he _had_ a knife, he could make use of every inch of his prey.

Jake's mind is filled with visions of meat and no way to prepare it when the unmistakable sound of people's voices come through the trees. He thinks, _Of course_. Because the people from the hospice would undoubtably come for Callie.

And then Jake isn't thinking of anything but getting to her first, and getting the both of them out of here.

He bursts through the treeline at the edge of the pond, biting back the urge to shout to her and draw attention their way. She's in the water, but not far out, and she's half naked, and struggling to cover the expanse of gray skin, looking about ready to scream when he comes to her side and covers her mouth. She struggles against him and he does his best to still her without touching anything but her mouth and her arms, hissing in her ear, “Put your clothes on, _now,_ we're leaving,” and she starts to quietly cry against his hand. He realizes he still has the gun in his hand, that it is pointed at her throat. He releases her as if burned, and turns his back to her, glares at the trees. She's still hiccuping as the water swishes past him, and he continues to turn his head staunchly away so she can reach the dry rocks where she's piled her clothes and cover herself up in as much privacy as he can permit. He trains his gaze on a little sprout that has popped up by the water, about where she buried the birds last night.

“I'm done,” she sniffles, voice hitching, and he grabs her by the arm and starts to drag her around the edge of the pond, towards its far side. Every cell in his body is thrumming, preparing for the sound of voices to close in.

They never do, not again. But that doesn't stop Jake from dragging Callie with him into the expanse of a strange wilderness for the better part of the day. It is very dark by the time the two of them collapse in the dirt, the stars barely visible for the clouds that have gathered in the night sky.

Ω

Her hands are in his hair. “Once-”

“Stop,” he says, turning over. He's glad he can't see her face. He's sure she's hurt.

“I-I'm sorry,” she murmurs. “I forgot.” There is a pause. Then, “As the little troll girl and the valiant hero made their way across the marsh...”

“Callie.” He sits up, turns to glare at her. “I didn't mean change to a different story. I meant stop. Just go to sleep.”

Her hands clasp and worry at one another. “But... But we've had such a long day, I thought it'd be comforting-”

“We. Are _not._ Friends,” Jake enunciates every word as though it's a language with which she's unfamiliar, which she's only just learning. “A prisoner doesn't tell her kidnapper stories to soothe him.”

Her eyes fall away from his. “What about me?” she whispers. “Don't I get to soothe myself, at least?”

He makes a show of sighing angrily, of throwing himself down onto his side with his back facing her. “Just think the stories to yourself. I don't need them – they're annoying.”

After a long pause, he hears her settle down next to him. It's a long time before either of their breathing is even.

Ω

“Her father and her father's father and the entire line of fathers before her were in bed with Prospit. They didn't care about the people of Derse, not really. They just wanted to line their pockets. So up until the Black Queen took the throne, we were a dumping grounds for your country.” (He didn't say “your country” in an accusatory way. Jake had long since grown used to Dirk's direct way of talking about politics.) “Her ancestors let Prospit suck their kingdom dry, charging exorbitant fees for the import of necessities and monopolizing the few industries that Derse managed to develop on its own.”

“The ones not taken up by the sea-dwellers, right?”

“Yes, actually. Although the sea-dwellers are a more recent development, within the last thirty or so years.” Dirk smiled at him, and Jake felt similar satisfaction to the times he'd answered correctly in class. But with more of a hot, nervousness in his belly. Dirk's smile was loads nicer than Mrs. Uvalst's, a troll woman Dirk had more than once referred to as wretchedly evangelical and a jingoist. Jake didn't know what a jingoist was, but he didn't want Dirk to think he was stupid by asking. (Evangelical, on the other hand, was a word whose definition he would never forget, as he had accidentally asked his uncle's friend Karkat what it meant once, and had had its meaning shouted at him with a bevy of expletives.)

“Anyway, the Black Queen – no numerals, remember, she's the first – she was good for Derse. In addition to asserting our independence, she did a lot to help those hurt by her war. She really strengthened the government in general – which, as with her public work programs, can sometimes be a good thing, but, as with 'the carapace war,' as a lot of trolls called it – although humans, really, were indifferent to it, as we always are, so long as we can find a faction with which we'll continue to survive... Anyway, the Black Queen fell out of favor with many. Including, obviously, your people, the Prospitians.”

Dirk swiped a finger down Jake's chest, shivers erupting in its wake. He trailed it down, did a loop around Jake's abdomen, swept back up. “Acquiring Lolar was a blessing and a curse. She wouldn't let the sea-dwellers seize the fresh water, instead putting it under the state's possession.” He dragged his finger back down and, as Jake squirmed, he was vaguely aware of the fact that Dirk's hand was moving with purpose.

“W-what, ah. What are you drawing?”

“Derse,” Dirk said, fingers brushing a place that made Jake produce a rather loud yelp. “Well. I _was_.”

Jake always felt embarrassingly inexperienced in comparison to Dirk, and so, summoning a great deal of courage, he reached for the boy laying at his side and swept him into his embrace, kissing him fiercely. To his delight, Dirk laughed as they turned and tumbled, until Dirk was underneath him, blonde hair thoroughly mussed, eyes heavy-lidded and pupils blown out.

“What an interesting development,” he murmured. Then, with a smirk, “Were you really listening to me talk at all?”

Jake wanted to hide his blush, but given that he was currently right on top of Dirk and bending his head inwards would just smash their foreheads together, he settled for avoiding eye contact. “O-of course I was, Dirk. Even when it doesn't make all that sense to me, I always listen to what you have to say. This stuff's really, really important to you, a-and you light up when you talk about it, so it'd be real rude for me not to lis-”

Dirk tugged him down rather abruptly into a kiss, and after a few moments of fumbling from both young men, they settled into a rhythm.

“You couldn't even take your shirt off in front of me a week ago,” Dirk laughed against his lips, “and now you're climbing on top of me. What's that all about?”

“I've grown accustomed to this, I suppose,” Jake replied, still blushing. “I'm no longer afraid of you.”

“Why ever be afraid of me?” A kiss on the nose, like an adult would give a silly child. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

“Oh, I know that,” Jake huffed. “You're just so... intense. I'm scared of looking like a numbskull in front of you.”

“Intense?”

“Yes – about everything, really.”

“Really?”

“Yes – games, school, politics. S-sex.” Oh god, of course his voice had to crack right then. Well, at least his blush wasn't making his glasses fog up, right? He cleared his throat hurriedly. “You're an extremely intense person.”

Dirk pursed his lips, thinking. Then shrugged. “I don't see it?”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “Well, now you're just messing with me, mate.”

“No, I really don– oh my god!” Dirk dissolved into laughter as Jake buried his face into his neck, littering it with kisses and nibbles. “N-no, no, no, I _told_ you that tickles!”

Jake lifted his face, skin such a ruddy tone that he wondered if he'd ever return to his regular skin color or just look like a blushing fool forever. “S'never as romantic as they make it seem in the books,” he grumbled.

“Books? You've been reading books?” Dirk's lips quirked. “Roxy's wizard romances, you mean?”

“ _No!_ ”

“Tell me! Tell me about the books! Oh, don't act like such a blushing virgin.” Dirk patted him sympathetically on the shoulder. “Tell me a story!”

Jake scowled. “Fine – but let me roll over, at least, my arms are getting tired.”

Dirk grinned. “We could switch places.”

“Alright. One, two...”

They rolled over, their limbs getting tangled, elbows bumping guts, teeth catching lips, and soon, they were distracted enough that Dirk forgot about the books, and Jake, mercifully, didn't have to recount a single word.

Those early times, when the two of them were both living in Derse, but not so close by, were the happiest times of their relationship. They had been terribly lucky no one was home that day – Porrim especially. She found their awkward romance to be quite a lark, and never missed an opportunity to tease them for it.

On the other hand, Roxy, Dirk's little sister, avoided them like the plague. It was jealousy, Dirk claimed, although of which of them, Jake was never sure. He'd felt bad to robbing her of her big brother's time, especially when she was so, so far away from the rest of her family.

But then, there was always Porrim to keep her company.

Ω

When the sullen stone houses first rise up on the horizon Jake thinks they're an illusion brought on by the downpour. Rain is coming down so thick that breathing is an effort and it feels like God is trying to drown them. And God is supposedly a frog, Jake thinks, remembering the Skaian fundamentalists, all carapaces, standing on street corners and holding up their signs. The end is nigh, the end is always nigh for sinners unless they turn to the One True Faith, which, ever so ironically, that clown cult and those Signless freaks always said about their churches. They were right and all who disagreed would sorry when white light finally swallowed the earth. It was all the three could agree on. Jake wonders what followers of the Old Religion would say, but those people had been chased out of Prospit long before he'd been born. He knew little about theology to begin with, let alone those banished ones.

_No_ , he thinks, remembering, _not God_. _The_ universe _is a frog, and it has currently forgotten the trillions of lives on its back, and is trying to take a dip in the great cosmic pond._

The houses only get bigger and more focused as he and Callie climb the hill, and his tired feet are thankful. He loosens his grip on the back of Callie's neck somewhat in celebration. As they get closer to town, Jake leans into her ear and reminds her that just because he doesn't plan on whipping out a gun in public doesn't mean this is her chance to get away from him. She nods, shivering hard. Her lips have paled from black to deep gray from the cold. He thinks again, _Thank god we reached this place_. He'd been dragging her along on nothing but the knowledge of where the cardinal directions were relative to them (thanks to the rise and set of the sun), the slim memory of his map, and a harried, unspoken prayer for them to survive another day.

When the squish of soaked dirt and grass beneath their feet is replaced by the thump of boots on hard cobblestone, Jake feels an immense wave of relief come over him. He tries to push it away, knowing that they are not saved yet. Grudgingly pulling Callie close, he drags them under the nearest eave. Upon further inspection, it seems the building they are drying up next to is a post office, closed for the night.

“Let's take a quick break,” he says, curtly, “and then we'll find an inn, or something.” He scowls at the torrent of water only a few steps away. “I swear to god, if there are people in this town who recognize you...”

“They won't,” she whispers. “No one will.”

He rolls his eyes, shakes his head. “Like I can trust anything you say.”

Callie doesn't answer. She rubs her arms, her entire body trembling hard. Jake finds himself hoping that her healing prowess extends to times when she is physically taxed, or else she may be in trouble. _He_ may be in trouble. The demon was quite specific about bringing her back alive.

“I-instead of running around every which way in the rain, why don't we just knock on the first door we see, and ask if they know how to get to the nearest inn?” Callie asks through chattering teeth.

Jake is a little miffed he didn't think of that himself. “Yeah, whatever. Sure.” Then, “ _I'll_ go. You stay here.” He doesn't need her tearfully telling strangers that he's kidnapped her. And if she runs now, well. He'll catch her. It's pouring rain. She can't survive without him.

“G-good luck,” she bids him through chattering teeth, and he approaches the nearest building that looks like a place of residence. After knocking in three different, impatient spurts, someone finally comes to the door. They seem suspicious of someone from out of town, and this only increases when this very ragged human refers to a _troll_ girl feebly as his “traveling companion,” but, disapproving of interspecies marriage or not, the owner of the home wants the local innkeepers to make money, and so begrudgingly points Jake in the right direction. After expressing his many thanks, Jake crosses the street to Callie, grabs her by the elbow, and mutters, “Come on.”

Ω

The innkeeper is a carapace man even more suspicious of outsiders than the person who directed them here. He doesn't respond to their knocking when they find the front entrance locked, and when he does finally answer the door, he doesn't invite them in, leaving them instead to stand in the downpour while he eyes them from the warmth of his inn. He hasn't got visible pupils, of course, but he's squinting at them, and Jake sees a flicker of something in those eyes that suggests he's giving them an apprehensive once-over.

Jake feels self-conscious of his oversized teeth as he makes an effort to smile politely, especially when he gets a peek of the fangs on the other man. “Uh, hello, sir, m-my traveling companion and I were wondering if we could trouble you for a room for the night.”

“Sure. You got money?” the man asks, not moving a muscle from where he stands in the doorway.

Jake sucks on his teeth. “Well. No. But see, we've been traveling for a very long time and we're very tired and possibly on the verge of collapsing, so it'd be ever so kind of you-”

“No money, no room.” The innkeeper says.

Jake bristles. “Yes, well.” His lip curls, conjuring to mind the image of a testy dog about to bite. “Perhaps you could find it in your heart to be charitable-”

“Charity doesn't pay my taxes and put bread on my table,” the man replies, staunchly. He returns Jake's glare and then, eyes falling on Callie, doe-eyed and pitiful, his expression softens. “I'm sorry, but if you have nothing to offer me-”

“We do,” Callie says, immediately.

“Callie,” Jake hisses, fury rising, “what are you doing?”

“We're very hard-working people,” she insists, ignoring him. “We'd be quite willing to work for you a few days and pay off our debt. Jake here's quite strong, I'm sure he could do any heavy labor you need. We're not above scrubbing dishes or sweeping floors, a-and I'm a healer, so if you've got any injuries, any illness in the family, I can help.”

The man worries his lower lip, looking much less sure in his decision to repel them than moments before. “I don't know... I mean, how can I know I can trust you?” he asks, gesturing meaningfully at their ragged clothes.

“ _Please,_ sir,” she insists, her dark eyes huge. “I know we must look a mess, but those... _nasty_ hooligans from the city beat us and robbed us several miles back. We've got nothing. No money, not even a change of clothes. We've been wandering for _ages_ and we'd so _love_ a place to stay, please, we will absolutely earn it.”

The man purses his lips, looking at the pair standing in his doorway with a newfound pity. “Fine. I can't turn away somebody who's been wronged by those revolutionary bastards without any guilt,” he sighs, stepping aside. His expression becomes serious, though, and he points to her, gruffness returning. “But you  _will_ earn it.”

Callie's smile seems to actually sparkle as she steps into the bright light of the inn's entryway. “Oh,  _thank_ you sir,  _bless_ you.”

“Thanks,” Jake adds, trying, again, to smile insincerely, but the man only has eyes for Callie. Jake tries not to begrudge her charm too much – it's what's giving them a warm, dry place to sleep, after all.

Ω

Okay, so it's nauseating. When they've finally gotten to their room, Callie is _still_ batting her eyelashes and smiling all sugary sweet and telling the innkeeper _Thank you, kindly,_ and it takes her at least ten minutes to get him away so they can shut the door and finally be alone. As Jake falls backwards onto the bed (the man was kind enough to give them a room with two, he notes, not sure whether to feel offended at the assumption or relief at the complication it saves them), he comes to the realization that he will have to put forth a lot of effort to keep the innkeeper from bonding with Callie while they stay here. The innkeeper's not a tall man by any means, but Jake doesn't want to have to fight him should it come out that Callie is not his traveling companion, but his prisoner.

Callie leans with her back against the door. “People around here are quite frightened of the revolutionaries closing in on the countryside. No surprise there – every little town in Derse is.” She looks sad. “I feel awful for exploiting that, but I knew it'd win us some sympathy.”

“As did your charms,” Jake mutters.

Callie shrugs, crosses her arms self-consciously. “Yes, well. Anything not to die of hypothermia.”

“No, I mean. Literal charms. You used literal charms, right?” Jake sits up on the bed, raises an eyebrow at her. “You used magic, to seduce him.”

She gapes. “I did _not..._ ” She stammers for a moment, as if having trouble saying the word, “... _seduce_ him!” She straightens her jacket. “And I did not use magic on him, I'm exhausted, of course!”

“You did use magic,” Jake insists. “It's the only way you could possibly get through to a stubborn old scoundrel like that.”

Her expression of astonishment turns to one of indignation. “I did _not_ use magic! I got through to him because I was nice and polite and, okay, I lied to him, too, but I saved us from _you_ is what happened! I had to think fast! I was afraid you'd shoot him if he didn't let us in!”

Before he even realizes, he's up on his feet, stalking towards her. She cowers against the door just as his hand is reaching for her throat. “How _dare_ you – I would _never_ turn that gun on ANYBODY _-_ ”

He stops himself mid-shout, realizing the irony of his words. He's got the very girl he _has_ turned a gun on trembling before him, her arms over her head, her body bent into itself in anticipation of a physical blow. Enraged at her fear, enraged at himself, Jake smashes his fist against the door, not touching her, but severely rattling her nerves just the same.

And then he turns on his heal, grumbles, “I'm going to shower,” sure to slam the bathroom door behind him when he goes.

Ω

Later, when he is clean, when he has his back bare to her, is toweling off his hair, the bed sinks and he senses more than feels the hand hovering above his shoulder. “Jake...” He shoulders her away. “Jake, I'm sorry. I should've known you'd never hurt that man. You told me, when we got here, that you'd never pull out your gun in public, and I should have listened to you. I'm sorry.”

He pulls the towel from his hair and lets it rest around his shoulders, still not turning to look at her. “...It's alright,” he grumbles. He wants to say, “I was out of line, shouting at you,” but he doesn't. They can't be friendly with one another. They _can't._

Scheherazade continues to tell stories in the hope that they will save her life. “Honest. I'm sorry. I won't disobey you again, I won't.”

Her hand lights on his shoulder again. He lets it rest there a moment. Then, “You'd better go shower.”

“Yes,” she answers, and the hand is gone. He turns his head, respectful of her in that one respect, still, as she walks past his bed to the bathroom. He lifts his eyes just as she's entering the bathroom, and. She's clothed.

He doesn't know why he was stupid enough to think she'd take her clothes off with him in the room.

 


	5. Form

A long, long time ago, long before you or any of your species crawled out of the viscous muck of the ancient ocean, long before the ocean itself, long before the planet was even a molten rock hurtling full speed into the darkness in search of a sun that could pull it in close and keep it warm, a pair of twins were born.

I won't bother you with many details, because it'd be impossible for you to understand them. But let it suffice to say that it was significant that these twins were born at the exact same moment that the universe came into being. Let it be known that it was also significant that their parents, that the previous manifestations of existence, and that which you would probably call an “alternate universe,” were all snuffed out in that exact same moment.

The twins drifted in the stars. Or, they probably did. Who remembers infancy? But they must have drifted in whatever was there – pure blackness, maybe, if the concept of black could even be conceived of yet. But the twins' first memories were of stars. And of feeling warm, and of being one, with each other and everything, but also. But also more separate than before, perhaps. As if their two burgeoning senses of consciousness were fragments dividing from a whole, as if the stars were little flames that had pulled away from a greater, more eternal fire, as if everything that had once been one was slowly becoming... not. And yet it was still connected, if not in a tenuous, literal sense, than by virtue of having come from the same womb.

A cosmic, metaphysical womb, of course.

For a long time, the twins did not have what you or I would consider form. They were beyond bodies, unable to be portrayed in three dimensions, too powerful to be contained in one time and space.

This was when they were young, anyway, and when they were at the height of their power. But by the time the planets began to take on form of their own, the twins were weakened, withering away enough so that when the first living beings crawled out of the ocean, they were more than enough suited to be contained by a form. Two forms, even. One for each of them. They were terribly lucky, in this incarnation, to be given that option.

And when the universe began to die, well. Then the twins' “biological clocks,” as you might so crudely understand them to be, began to tick as well.

Ω

Jake is starting to get anxious. They were never meant to stay in this place for so long, but a never-ending queue of chores and the desperate desire to remain in a real bed has prevented them from moving on.

“We have to go soon. I don't want your friends from the hospice coming after us.”

Callie won't meet his eyes. “They won't come for me.”

“Oh, _bullshit._ ”

“They _won't_. They're too... they're just women with a little magic, magic reserved for healing. They know how to crush herbs and little else. They wouldn't begin to know how to pursue a person like you.”

“They could always send the police.”

“The Condesce's men? For some missing witch girl? They wouldn't lift a finger.”

Jake doesn't care what she says – they need to move on soon. He mutters that it feels as though they've been imprisoned here, to which Callie replies, “Nonsense. We keep staying on, so he keeps giving us work to pay off the beds for the night. It's only logical.”

Easy for her to say. The fact of the matter is that while Jake has spent their time here cleaning, building, and performing a large array of manual labor for the inn, Callie has found work as an occasional holistic healer and a waitress in the restaurant portion, which was quickly changed to hostess because the innkeeper felt that a “doll like her” shouldn't be carrying such heavy dishes around. In between heaving garbage cans and fixing sheds and stacking crates, Jake would grumble to himself about the pity of small towns suddenly growing out of their conservative ways and becoming more accepting of interspecies romance.... Although Callie swore up and down that the innkeeper wasn't in love with her. But given the obsessive way the innkeeper was trying to separate them, Jake wasn't really predisposed to believe her. The only time Jake ever found himself working anywhere near the restaurant was when he had to heave crates of foodstuffs inside, and that was way in the back, in the kitchen, far from Callie.

About three days into their stay at the inn, Jake had figured out that the innkeeper was still suspicious of him, and would likely try to isolate Callie and get her to confide in him about Jake. And so, in the middle of heaving a rather large shipment of crates, Jake had taken a break to slip out of the kitchen and into the front portion of the restaurant, where Callie had still been working as a waitress. He had grabbed her when she was about to drop drink orders off at the bar, and had cornered her into an alcove that was supposed to hold a potted plant.

“Jake!” she gasped in surprise. “W-what are you doing here? I mean, I thought you were working out back-”

“Callie,” he said, “listen – if anyone asks what our relationship is to each other, you lie, okay? We're... we're very good friends. Don't let people pry into where we're from or where we're going, and don't say a _word_ about your blood.”

She pursed her lips. “I wouldn't ever go around shouting about my blood color; how do you think I survived this long-?”

His punishing grip on her upper arm quieted her. He glanced over his shoulder, making sure no one was watching them, before he lowered his head close to hers and spoke in low, angry tones.

“Don't go gabbing around, making conversation with every John and Mary you see. You don't talk more than you need to – in fact, you don't talk unless you're spoken to and it's _vital_ that you talk only as you need it to get through your work. Right?”

“Jake, I-”

“ _Right?_ ”

She swallowed. “Yes. Right.”

“Good.” He pulled away from her and marched towards the kitchen. He passed another waiter on the way, a carapace, who gave him the stink-eye. Jake merely nodded at him, careful to keep his expression inoffensive. No use threatening anyone else here until he absolutely had to.

Ω

Tonight, just as he does every night, Jake grills Callie on everything she did and said over the course of the day.

“And after my shift was over, I tended to the plants the innkeeper lent me. You can see them right there on the windowsill! I didn't go anywhere except our room!”

“Did you make conversation with the customers?”

“Jake, I told you, I only say what I have to say to be friendly. It's just as you asked me to.”

“I don't remember telling you to be friendly,” Jake grumbles, pulling off his socks. He's sitting on his bed, facing hers without looking at her, and he groans as he starts to rub his ankle. He's sore all over from the day's work, but she doesn't look like she so much as broke a sweat. “You're not making friends, are you?”

“No, you quite saw to that.” Her voice shakes as she says it, and suddenly she's standing up and rummaging around the room, folding clothes, opening and shutting drawers.

“Sit down,” Jake sighs. “You're making me nervous.”

“I'm just looking for something to wear tomorrow.” There's a tremble in her voice that he ignores.

“Well, it can't be very hard, since we haven't got many clothes.”

“Although we have _some._ Thanks to our lodger.” The helpless little smile she gives the dresser, then, has him inexplicably angry. “We're so fortunate to have him.”

Jake scowls. “Look – you need to tell your _lover_ that we need to move on soon. We've got families to return to, or some such, I don't know. Make something up, and make sure he understands that it's urgent without allowing him much detail.” He rolls up his pant-leg and kneads at his throbbing knee, thinking. God, his joints ache so terribly, he feels like an old man. “Maybe request we get some provisions, too. We'll need a... a knife, something suited to clearing really dense underbrush and preparing animals to eat... some blankets, a tent...”

Callie frowns. “Will we be staying out in the wilderness, again?”

Jake looks warily at her. “Yes.” She loves nature, she shouldn't look so disappointed. Just look at the flowers she keeps by the window – they're proof that she's wasting valuable energy on giving plants growth spurts. “We can't be staying in ritzy establishments like this all the time, can we? The clock's ticking. We have places to be.”

Callie stands by the dresser with clothes draped over her arm, quiet for a long time. Jake can tell by the way she's hesitating to go to the bathroom and take her nightly shower, which is one of the few times she has privacy from him in the evenings, that she wants something from him that'll probably make him angry. She picks at the hem of a sweater, gives herself an excuse to keep her eyes downcast before she can speak.

“What is he offering you?”

Jake snorts. “A fat load of nothing but this room and our three square meals. Why, has he offered you extra?”

“Not the innkeeper,” she says. “My brother.”

Jake's hands slip away from his knee. He gives her his full attention. “I'm not working for any troll.”

“I'm not any troll,” she says. “But you know that already, don't you?”

Jake sucks on his teeth, trying to figure out how to respond. “Brother,” she calls him – does that mean the monster sent him after a family member? If they're the same species, if she's as powerful as him, it could explain why the monster couldn't get her himself... but why send Jake? Why would he be more effective?

“He told me some things,” Jake replies, carefully. “If you really _are_ his sister, then I suppose that makes you a demon too?”

Her eyes look glassy and she drags her gaze away from the clothes in her arms, instead focusing it on the wall. “He is not what he seems.”

“And neither are you.”

“He won't keep his word.Whatever he's promised you, he's not likely to keep his word. I've known him our entire lives, and he's never once...”

“I don't have to listen to this,” Jake snaps, jumping to his feet, “I'm working for him, and a _lot_ more than just some demon girl's life on the line with this, so you might as well be quiet now because nothing you can say will change my mind!”

And then, as he desires, she does stop. And she really, really looks at Jake, her eyes boring into him in a way that make his insides squirm.

“Dirk,” she whispers. “Your Dirk. The Dirk you said you loved, who you'd trade me for every time – that's _the_ Dirk, isn't it? Dirk Strider? My brother’s imprisoned the boy from the capital, the _prince-”_

“Yes,” Jake says, rubbing his nose, “yes. He's _that_ Dirk. And now you know that you're not being traded for just _one_ life – now you know that me trading you in means... changing the fate of a war, means saving an _entire country_ , so you can _see_ why I'm in a hurry to get us out of this town.”

But Callie is shaking her head, her expression pained. “No – no, something's wrong. My brother's going to trick you. He can't have captured someone that powerful without intending to use him to his advantage.”

“Then let's return to your brother, quickly,” Jake replies, a bit irritably, “so he can take as little advantage as possible.”

“You don't understand – Jake, you are dealing with forces _far_ beyond your comprehension, a-and-”

He stalks over to her and tries to use his size and anger to shut her up, but she keeps talking, impressively brave even as she cowers. “My brother can do far more harm to all of us, to  _millions,_ than you could  _ever_ do to me!”

She ducks her head, covers her eyes, but the next thing she knows, there's the slam of a door. She lifts her head, cautiously, and finds that Jake is no longer looming over her. And then she hears the tub start running from the other side of the bathroom door.

She tries not to feel too relieved that he didn't strike her. His temper's getting testier by the day. She touches her cheek where the pistol hit her that first day, and she trusts, she knows that he won't kill her. He doesn't want to hurt her, either, but – that, that he will. Sooner and more easily than he now could ever imagine.

Ω

When it occurs to him how long they've been here without being pursued, Jake pulls one of the waiters from the restaurant aside. “Excuse me. Have you heard of a hospice or anything of that sort around here?”

The carapace points wildly in the air, as if to trace an imaginary map. “Go all the way down main street, take a right, and about three houses down you'll find Doctor H. Big, blue cottage with yellow shutters. You can't miss it.”

He starts to walk on, but Jake catches him by the arm, slows his escape. “Wait, wait, friend. I'm looking for something a little more... informal. Is there anything less local you'd recommend? Maybe something run by Skaian nuns, or nurses, or nice, magic types...?”

The waiter ponders this for a few moments before shaking his head. “No, there's certainly nothing of that sort around. Part of the reason the owner's so keen on your girl – she brings in those mystical nature types who don't trust physicians. Business is booming in the inn, all thanks to her. Now can I go? This tray weighs a ton.”

He shrugs out of Jake's grip and goes on his way. Jake stays where he is for a while, puzzling over how a hospice with a staff member as talented as Callie can go unnoticed by town only several days' trek away. But before he can reach any conclusions, the innkeeper is coming towards him, yelling about this and that work left to be done, and he is forced to return to his duties.

Ω

Jake can barely remember what season it is, but he feels like this recent heatwave, which has not so mysteriously coincided with extra shifts of outdoor work, is definitely unusual for this time of year. The Derse he knows and so dearly loves usually prefers to pour rain on him when it's inconvenient, not boil him alive, but then, it's not like he's been here a whole year, so he doesn't know the climate all that well.

Wiping a layer of sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, he lowers his hammer and thinks,  _That bastard._ Who the hell needs their  _shed_ expanded? Like this run down inn even gets all that much business in the first place, that any part of it needs to be expanded. Jake knows the owner is just pulling jobs out of thin air at this point, to isolate Jake and keep Callie all to himself. Well, tough for him. Jake's taking her away from this place as soon as he can. They've already lost a blasted  _week and a half_ here. Jake counts the weeks since he first picked up Callie in hits of the hammer on a nail, one, two, three... 

A month. It's been at least a month since Jake dragged her out into that orchard. Just thinking of how long it'll be until he makes it back to Derse's border makes him grind his teeth. If he could find a way to get there tomorrow, he would.

His jaw is uncomfortably clenched and starting to feel sore by the time he's able to lay his hammer aside and go back into the inn. The lack of a scorching sun is somewhat of a relief, but he can tell there aren't any magic people living in the area. Otherwise this place would be loaded with charms and little herbs in baggies that made the place not only cooler than an ice bath, but as fragrant as a flower garden. Lamenting silently to himself, Jake makes his way through the kitchen out into the restaurant, which is unoccupied except by Callie and the owner. They don't see him right away, and so he hangs back, watching and listening from behind a pillar. (He by no means  _hides_ behind the pillar, he isn't a  _ child _ . He just doesn't make it a point to step into view.)

The innkeeper is smiling that gentle smile he seems not to use for anyone but Callie – anyone including his wife, a stout, equally sour-faced carapace woman who spends most of her time either tending the bar, in the evening when they had more local customers, or in a back room, doing the numbers for their business.

The innkeeper hands Callie something, and her polite smile becomes brighter and more genuine. “Oh, you needn't have,” Jake hears her gush, and it is then that Jake approaches the two. Callie's smile falters when she sees him, but not too much. The innkeeper, on the other hand, outright glares at Jake.

He turns back to Callie with a smile. “You've earned it. Most honest person I think I've ever met.” He pats the object he's given to her. Then he turns fully to Jake, gruffness returned.  _ Labile, this one,  _ Jake thinks, responding to the hostility by squaring his shoulders and standing up straighter. Jake is well aware of the height advantage he has over the other man.

“You finish the shed?” the owner asks.

“Yeah,” Jake replies. “Better than new.”

“I'll be the judge of that.” The man nods at him, smiles at Callie, and is off, making sure to bump into Jake on his way. Jake barely waits for him to be gone before he approaches her.

“What's this?” He snatches it out of her hands before she can answer. It's a small, blue velvet bag, and when he opens the draw string – yes. Of course. Heavy coins tumble into his hand, and his fist clenches around them before he has a chance to count them.

He glares at Callie. “I thought you said you weren't getting any extra?”

Callie's hands tremble. “Th-this is the first time he's ever given me something like this! Don't get angry at me, I was going to come to you right away...”

She doesn't reach for the bag. She just watches, miserable, as Jake slides the coins back inside, and pockets it. “Alright, then. Guess I'll go to the market and buy us those much-needed provisions.” He pats her on the shoulder as he passes her by on the way to the door. “We've got a schedule to keep, after all.”

Ω

With one tent, two quilts, one pot, one map, some rope, six bars of soap, two burlap backpacks to divide this load between them, and a sinister-looking knife to be kept in Jake's pocket at all times, they are ready. The innkeepers begs Callie to stay on, offers her a permanent place as resident holistic healer, but she just smiles sadly at him and touches his face.

He grabs her hand and holds it there. “It hurts to see you go.”

“It will stop soon,” she promises. “Someday, you will forget all about me.”

“Never,” he insists, but she's pulling away as the weight of Jake's glare starts to seep into her bones.

After many teary goodbyes on Callie's part (and some dewy eyes on the inn's staff's, who are sad to see her leave with a man they all believe to be her abusive boyfriend), Callie and Jake finally leave their first town together. As they walk, Jake's hand grips her upper arm, both as a guide and as a warning.

Ω

She screams the first night he ties her up, reduced to panicked gasps when he finishes the last knot and moves to the other side of the tent, away from her. “Oh, come, now. You didn't think I was going to give you the chance to run away in the middle of the night, did you?”

She cries herself to sleep and he blocks out the sound by pressing his quilt, hard, over his ears. At one point, he gets up with his quilt and leaves the tent, fully intending to sleep outside. But as he's settling onto the ground, something wet hits his head. And another hundred wet things. With a groan, he realizes that the recently arid weather must be over, or at least on reprieve. As a light drizzle gains a steady rhythm over the land, he shuffles back into the tent, to curl up, damp and grumpy, with his back to the still whimpering girl.

As an afterthought, he pushes the pot outside, to collect rain water. He figures, if they can't find any dry wood to light a fire, they can at least have the pleasure of using it to wash their faces tomorrow.

Ω

They follow the railroad tracks because, according to the map, the rails will lead them to the border the most quickly, and with the least chance of getting lost along the way. They cannot take the train one, because they haven't got the funds, and two, because weapons are illegal for civilians, and there is no way that Jake can get rid of the gun the demon gave him, let alone hide it well enough on his person to survive an intensive search.

As they follow the tracks, Jake doesn't think about being seventeen and watching his boyfriend get on a train returning to Derse, or how the crushing weight of absence weighing on his heart had turned, after a novel's worth of letters and that emotional erosion that comes with distance and the passing of time, to relief. Instead, Jake thinks about the towns along the tracks. Should they avoid them? Enter them? He thinks of Callie escaping in the night and wonders in which environment, wilderness or civilization, that he'd have more success tracking her down. The railroad only passes through the bigger port towns and the capital city itself. If they stop, it'll be in the most heavily populated places in Derse. She could slip away in a crowd. But out in the wilderness, even without the thick, lush forests of Prospit, she can also disappear easily if she wanted.

As this weighs on him, Callie solemnly matches his pace, never once straying from his side. He doesn't understand it, and so he prepares himself for what he thinks is her inevitable attempt to escape – or attack. She  _ must _ be planning something. What all-powerful demon is cowed by a mere human?

Ω

The nights bite their skin and the days sear through them. When Jake was young and all of his family members and human classmates lighter-skinned than him, there was a period of time that his love for outdoor play was pitted against his hatred of the sun and its ability to make him even darker than he already was. His mother had stroked his hair and told him he was beautiful in his own right, special, even, but he always felt less special and more... anomalous, really, quite queer, an outcast even amongst the dying kind that was humanity.

Callie always wears layers, no matter the time of day or the temperature. For some reason, it irks Jake.

“Why in the blazes don't you take your jacket off? It's a hundred degrees.”

“It's hardly a hundred,” she sighs. “You're from Prospit, you should be used to higher temperatures.”

Jake was, in fact, used to a brighter sun. But he wasn't used to being forced to stay out in the wilderness far longer than he wanted to be there, and he wasn't used to the awful humidity of Derse. “No matter if it's just rained or there's a blasted heat wave, this country is always wet,” he complains. “But really, you shouldn't commit suicide by heat stroke, Callie, it's far too slow to be worth it, so take your damn coat off.”

“I don't want to. Why do you even care how many clothes I keep on?”

He doesn't have a justifiable answer to that, and so he doesn't answer. They walk on a little longer. But as the sun beats down on their backs, he can't help returning to the subject.

“You don't dress down, ever? Not even when it's physically uncomfortable?”

“I'm more uncomfortable by the idea of exposing too much skin than by the idea of being too hot,” Callie confesses. Then, even though there's no one for miles, she lowers her voice. “Besides – you know very well that I have reason to be self-conscious.”

He ponders this. “I do?”

“Yes. The lake.”

“The pond, you mean.” He puzzles on. The pond. The pond...

“You saw me naked,” Callie clarifies.

“No I didn't,” Jake huffs. “I specifically avoided looking at you.”

She hesitates, carefully watching his face. “Really? You saw nothing?”

“Absolutely nothing.” He'd seen her back. But he'd been too focused on grabbing her and getting her out of there to notice details, and when he'd realized she wasn't wearing clothes he'd done his best to block out the details. He's becoming a lot of things he never thought he'd become, lately, but a rapist isn't one of them.

She bites her lip, looks at the ground as it passes under her feet. “It's, just. Some people don't think my body's right. For a girl.”

His brow crinkles. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Because her chest is flat, because her hands are a little big? She's always tucking those hands away, every chance she gets. It's a wonder she doesn't just wear gloves at all times. Or... “Can't you just change it?” Jake realizes. “You've got the power, right? To change your body?”

She shakes her head. “At one time. But not anymore. If I tried to transform myself now, I'd likely end up a mass of blood, just like anyone else.”

Ah. So that's it. She's weakened. But she still has the ability to put  _ lungs  _ back together, and – and Jake saw her heal others, heard stories from the nurses that she'd once helped a person who'd been caught under a fallen beam while constructing the railroad. Their legs had been crushed to a pulp, but thanks to Callie, that person was walking again within a year. She may have been demoted from... demonic, celestial, whatever sort of being to the status of a regular old, powerful magic user, but she should still be more than capable of destroying Jake.

He sighs, adjusting the straps of his pack. “What in the world are you? Do you even remember what your original face looked like?”

He expects her to be hurt by wording, but she ponders this, hums as she does so, even. “Do you mean my first face? Because I wasn't born with any 'true' form,” she says, making air quotes. “I existed for a long time before I was able to give myself a face. And I don't think I chose the first one, I didn't... I didn't like it, really.”

Jake huffs. “And now you don't like  _ this  _ one? Even though you designed it?”

“I find it interesting you assume I 'designed' any of my faces,” she replies. Then, “Yes, alright, I chose this one. But I _don't_ dislike it. In fact, I like it very much. It may be my favorite face I've had. I don't even dislike the rest of this... body, even if I do feel overly conscious of it, at times.” She sighs. “You people – you, all of you, humans, carapaces, leprechauns, whatnot, you have the most ridiculous standards for bodies. I picked mine out all by myself, I should get to decide its value, but you all keep telling me it's wrong.”

Jake blinks. “I'm sorry – did you say _ leprechauns? _ ”

“Now that I think about it, maybe most of them preferred the term elves,” she says with a thoughtful tilt of the head. “Much more romantic-sounding word, elves.”

“That answers next to none-”

They both jump at the sound of a whistle in the distance. Just over the horizon, they can see the wisp of smoke and a tiny, blocky shape. The train is coming. They are walking a few yards away from the tracks, traveling parallel, but now they move even farther away, despite the safety of the distance.

They watch the approach of the train for a while. It's the first time they've actually seen since starting their journey.

Jake decides he should ask what he can now before the train gets close and drowns their voices out. “You had your pick, of anything in the universe. Why'd you choose to look like a troll?”

A gust of wind rushes past their faces and she squints against it, to see the train in the distance, to protect from a sun shining the brightest that it can in Derse. She tucks a piece of white hair behind her ear and she says, “I find them fascinating. They've gone through so many sociocultural upheavals in their time – from a peaceful empire to one that glorified violence, thrived on it, even. And as their homeland decayed, they were forced to assimilate into something wholly different on Skaia.” She shrugs, and, although tentatively, she smiles for the first time since they left the inn behind. Jake is shocked to find that it hits him much like the first time he saw her smile – when he was a dying, lonely man starved for friendliness, finally sated. She's an angel, he thinks, with a hint of bitterness. Or at least, that's the front she puts up – that she's antithesis of that monstrous “brother” of hers. Jake has to continually remind himself that just because they were friends for a few weeks, just because she saved his life, doesn't mean he knows anything about this girl, can trust anything that comes out of her mouth.

“To be honest, I just think trolls are quite neat-looking, too.” She chuckles. “I like the horns. The colorful blood. Lots of opportunities to be creative. Not to offend you or anything, but hair and skin color combinations are quite a bore to me, and carapaces just...”

Jake wants so badly to laugh with her, but he pushes the urge away and reminds himself: do not connect. Instead he mutters, “Whatever you say.”

He wants to keep talking – traveling like this is  _ so boring _ – but the more he engages her, the more he knows she'll smile at him in that way that makes him want to turn tail and return her to the hospice.

The roar of the train drowns out all thoughts but the essential:  _ Do it for Dirk. Do it for Derse. _ He sees Callie peek shyly at his face, sees her pout. 

_ For Dirk _ , Jake reminds himself.  _ For Derse.  _ He always knew he'd sacrifice anything for the people he loved, but never, ever for millions of strangers. Funny how our priorities change.

Ω

“There's another thing,” she tells him, much, much later. The dark is greedy tonight. It swallows the edges of their camp, and the sharp contrast of firelight on their faces makes them stand out like spirits in a void. Callie's right eye is all about swollen shut and Jake is standing, swaying, breathing heavily, blood on his lips and clutching his stomach. With a clatter, he drops one, two, three, and his hands are empty and the world is spinning and he can't. He can't look at her face. He won't. He won't look at her, he won't, he does.

Callie sits with her legs drawn up to her chest, her face slacking to suggest not terror, but. Exhaustion. For the second time in five weeks, she is defeated. But being chased, tackled, and hit seems like childish roughhousing compared to this.

The ends of her horns are sawed off. They're about half as tall as they were before, and now they twist up and make flat edges rather than deadly points. Jake clutches his gut where she headbutted him in an act of desperate escape, tried to gore him, but her horns were too damn long and she was too unused to defending herself in this way that he'd easily gotten a grip on them and he'd started hacking almost blindly and now. Now the knife he'd bought, a big, wicked looking thing, had seen its first piece of action.

He wants to throw up, but all he can do is dry heave in the direction of the fire. He and Callie weren't talking about anything and so it confuses him when a voice made unfamiliar by the strangeness of their circumstances says, “There's another thing.”

As Callie talks, she addresses the fire. “I chose this form because trolls tend more towards biological ambiguity. Or, at least, they don't confine each other to categories as narrow as humans and carapaces and...” She smiles wanly. “Well. The rest don't matter, not anymore.

“I wanted a form that was as far from what I was as possible. I wanted a body that would not, could not give birth.” She tilts her head and her gaze focuses as if there are images there, dancing in the fire, that Jake cannot see. The image of someone who understands all this, maybe.

“Me and my brother belong to a species whose only purpose is to reproduce. We don't operate using the same mechanisms you mammals do. We don't operate like... trolls, using a proxy to incubate our young, we don't lay eggs, we don't do anything like any creature you've ever encountered in your small existence. We are creatures of a higher plane of existence! We forgo the need of bodies in our pursuit, and yet...

“And yet that's not enough, to keep the process from killing us. No body to strain, no infections to contract, but we die from it, anyways. It's stupid, it's...” She lets out a noise that, in another situation, might be called a laugh. “It's so stupid, that I ever thought that this... _body_ , this... this metaphorical vessel could ever neuter me. It's stupid that I ever thought I could escape something so beyond me, so beyond _this-”_ She grips her chest hard through her clothes, the jacket crumbling, her fingers clenching, trembling, trembling, her lips are trembling and her face is clenching and she is crying fully now as she says, “I know what you're thinking – isn't that the goal of every species? To reproduce? But it's bigger than that, for us, there, there is no such thing as sterility, there is no castration, no physical womb to mar – this is _my purpose!_ My only purpose, and I'm... I'm so scared.” She is bending forward now, her pretty face a wreck of emotion as she cries, “Jake, please, _please_ – you mustn't trust my brother. You mustn't let him have me, you mustn't, please, _please_ , don't make me-”

“You aren't real.” It comes out of his mouth before he can stop it and it sounds like somebody else's voice. He is floating. He is the darkness swallowing his body out of reach of the fire light, he is not responsible for the voice emanating from it. “You are a trickster – nothing about your form is real, why the _hell_ should I trust what _you-?!_ ”

“ _He's not real either!_ ” Callie screams, standing up suddenly. “By that logic _you can't trust him either!_ You _can't_ -”

“I _have_ to!” Jake shouts back. “I have to! I have to because I am responsible for Dirk's life and I cannot let him down!”

She's crying again, her hands raking over her face. “It's not your fault,” she sobs. “It's not your _fault_ that his life is on your hands-”

“It _is-_ ”

“He's hurting Dirk to _manipulate_ you! You don't _have_ to be responsible-”

“If I'm not then _who else will be?!_ ” His throat hurts from hollering and his fingers are wet. His heart is pumping harder and harder and he can feel his pulse against his hands. “I am the only one who knows where he is. I am the _only one_ who can bring him back. You go ahead and you tell me how in the world I'm not responsible for him!”

His sobs are swallowed by the night. Callie's face is buried in her hands. A spark jumps from the fire and, for one moment, shows brilliantly before it dies.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i first started watching buffy, wesley reminded me of jake english. and then i got to like season 3 of angel and i was like wooooah wesley's gone off the deep end what the hell
> 
> i hope you're all having a great summer!!!


	6. Messiahs and Martyrs

The followers of the Signless are not a religion so much as a philosophy, and so they do not have apocalypse lore _per se_. The only end they really believe in is more of a rebirth than anything. They believe in the inevitable uprising of the low bloods against their oppressors, that someday the laborers will tear the current power structures to pieces and bring about the dawn of a fairer world. The difference between Prospitian and Dersite practitioners is how much stock they put in fitting in with other modes of belief: Prospitians are all about big, beautiful temples and waiting around quietly for a messiah who will give them the ok-go on the whole uprising situation; the radicals in Derse prefer to speed the Promised Day along by uprising whenever they feel necessary, to chip away at the current regime in the hopes of creating a better tomorrow, rather than a better several-hundred-years-from-now.

Believers in Skaianity think that the celestial frog comprising the universe will eventually just... croak, so to speak. Perhaps some cosmic snake will come along and eat it, ending all of existence at once. Perhaps the subzero temperatures of deep space will finally freeze its poor amphibian nervous system. The writers of the big book didn't go into much detail on the whole apocalypse thing because they figured the end was the end. You can only prophesize for so long until what is Seen (or Guessed, or Made Up) hardly makes any difference to you and yours.

The Old Religion is all about the rising oceans and eternal night. Fire without light that burns even when doused in water. Gods, demons, otherwise known as the horribly terrible sea monsters those old fools worshipped rising from the depths to smite the unworthy. Who, apparently, are everyone, followers and blasphemers and those apathetic to the Old Religion alike.

It wouldn't be fair to say now who is closest to the truth. It's best just to wait it out like everyone else.

Ω

It's been a month since they started following the railroad west. Callie's ribs are showing and Jake's abdominal scar has faded to a plasticky white when they finally stumble upon the cabin.

According to its benevolent owner (a short, squat carapace man who lets them in without hesitation), they aren't too far off from the nearest town. But they've been veering off course for a while now, having found the big port towns along the railway to be dangerous. The empress's men have not moved in from the city in droves, but the sea-dwellers are getting fiercer about their allegiances, just as they did when the empress was first slated to be put on the throne. Something has been brewing in the capital, something big, and Callie knows her best chance at survival comes from sticking with Jake. He wants her alive until they reach their destination, at least. Those blood-caste obsessed monsters – they're ready to string up any mutant who crosses their path for the whole world to see. There have been stories about public killings in even the smallest towns, and regardless of whether they are real or meant to put the fear of Her Imperiousness into the population, they have successfully driven Jake and Callie further and further away from civilization.

They are sunken-eyed and low on supplies when the stout carapace man lets them into his ranch-style country home. “S'been years since friends came and stayed with me. I'm no stranger to hiding folks for their own good, s'why I chose the old fortress of solitude here when I retired from the force. Got out of there in the nick of time, too, a whole year before the old queen got deposed. Real shame. Wonderful lady. Never met her myself, but a wonderful lady. You're young people – I'm sure your memories of her are vague.”

“I was in Prospit at the time,” Jake replies, weary. Callie stands silently beside him, waiting for him to tell her it's okay to talk, to eat, to follow him to whichever sleeping arrangements are available here.

“Ah – you had those kind of parents, with the good sense to send you away!” The man hurries them into the kitchen, urging them to sit. He rushes to where he was preparing food on his counter, trying his best to expand his supper on such short notice. The luck of these people, finding their way here before he ate everything up! “Rude of me to jabber on without introduction – I go by A.R. No full names necessary, I assure you, everybody calls me A.R., even the mail boy who comes around on Tuesdays.”

Jake wonders vaguely how long this man has been hiding his identity from the crown. He's certainly isolated himself from the city well enough, even if it's only a few days' trek away as he claims.

“I'm Jake,” he says, offering only first names in turn. “This is Callie.”

Callie nods at A.R., who nods back. “My pleasure, young lady.”

“Yes,” she rasps, “same to you.”

A.R. turns to Jake with a raised eyebrow. “You two been out there in the wilderness a long time, haven't you?”

“Yes, sir,” Jake deadpans.

“That really does something to the psyche, alright. Makes it soft. A little vulnerable.”

“Absolutely. That it does, sir.” _Stodgy old bastard._

Dinner is served and Jake and Callie eat like wolves who've been tossed their first carcass in weeks. A.R. watches, no doubt perplexed by their poor table manners, as Callie trades meat for the greens Jake doesn't like, spilling things as they shovel at each other's plates. A.R. doesn't express any disgust, though; just smiles, glad to be doing a pair of unfortunates a favor.

Ω

The morning after they sprawl out on the couches in his den, Jake approaches A.R. about how they can barter for their stay. But the man just laughs at him. “Call this charity, son.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. I'm a lonely old guy, I don't mind having you two here.” He picks his teeth. “Tell you what – you want to pay me back, do so by resting up and getting all better before you traipse back out on that open road.”

_You trust too easily,_ Jake thinks. _In this political climate – no. At any time in this godforsaken country, we could be anyone. We could make you regret your “charity.”_ “Thank you, sir. We're both incredibly grateful for this opportunity.”

Ω

Callie doesn't talk anymore, really. Only in spurts, when she knows she's allowed to. A.R. gets very nervous around her, calls her “your solemn girlfriend” once to Jake's face.

“Oh, we're not dating,” Jake says. He pauses, lifts a glass of water to his lips, and makes a decision. “...She's my wife. We've been together about two months now.” He taps her on the shoulder. She leans away from the touch but nods in confirmation, barely meeting A.R.'s eyes.

A.R. makes a show of being pleased, and claps Jake roughly on the back. He is surprisingly strong for someone so much smaller than Jake. “Congratulations, my good boy! But you two looked like you hadn't seen a warm bath in nearly as long when you showed up on my doorstep yesterday.”

Jake takes another sip. Pondering. “We forsook a formal wedding for a long and exciting honeymoon. We're adventurous types.”

“Well,” A.R. chuckles, “perhaps you two got yourselves in over your heads, when you picked out this particular adventure.”

Ω

The house is a nice size for guests, and, if a little too big for one man alone, small enough that it's not hard for Jake to keep tabs on his prisoner. She eats her meals slowly, with little interest, and he supposes it'll take a while for her strength to return. He doesn't know if he'll ever see her smile again, but that's hardly a priority. Keeping her alive until he collects Dirk, on the other hand, is.

A.R. doesn't suspect Jake of abusing Callie like people they've encountered in the past. Probably because Jake's just as quiet as she is, just as dull-eyed and just as haggard. It's a relief when A.R. takes his horse out for a shopping run in the nearest town and returns at the end of the day with a razor. Jake can finally stop looking the part of the rugged huntsman/scary local predator.

Callie's hair, once just past her ears, now reaches her chin. He asks her if she wants a trim and she shakes her head rapidly, assures him she can work scissors on her own. “I'm not some warrior woman. I'm not going to chop it off with a razor.” He'd smack her, but A.R.'s in the room. That's the excuse he feeds himself, anyway, for not cutting her down for one of the only displays of personality he's seen from her in ages. He tries not to compare the glimpse of the old Callie to the sight of the sun peeking out from behind the clouds after weeks of stormy weather.

A.R. doesn't ask about her horns, although Jake sees him staring at them frequently enough. If Jake were a better person, the memory of what he's done to her would likely haunt him every time he laid eyes on her mutilated horns, and remind him of the person he's become. But the truth is, he's apathetic, having grown used to the sight of them. They're just a part of her now.

When they settle into sleep for the night, Callie doesn't try to tell him stories. She gave up on that a long time ago.

Ω

His eyes were the color of fire clouds and his teeth were perfectly straight and for a long time he couldn't get out of bed because he wanted to die, but he got over that, eventually, all it took was fresh air and a little affection and maybe a couple dozen toxic-looking potions Kanaya put together that made his head fuzzy like his home country's atmosphere but everything was good, it was always good, they loved one another unconditionally and Jake never fell out of love with him for very long before an old familiar affection would seize him again.

(Jake refuses to acknowledge now that just a friendship kind of love maybe wasn't enough to make a romantic relationship work.)

Ω

They only mean to stay for a few days. A.R. has made it clear to them that he wants them there for at least half a week, because he doesn't want them setting out for a long journey until they've fully recuperated. Jake wants them back on the road sooner, but settles for Wednesday, because it'll keep the worried old man from bothering him, and because Callie's too far broken to try anything at this point.

On Tuesday, he sits in the kitchen with A.R., drinking coffee. The sound of soft footsteps on hardwood draws his eye to the kitchen doorway, and there stands Callie, in a baggy shirt and loose pajama trousers, yawning, rubbing her eyes, blinking blearily as she follows her nose to breakfast. Something in Jake's chest twists at the sight of her, and as she approaches the pan of eggs on the counter, he stands, and moves with his coffee mug to a counter opposite. She glances at him briefly, expression unchanged, before resuming her acquisition of breakfast. They don't look at each other. Jake nearly lets his glasses fall into his mug, trying to keep his head down and turned away from her.

A.R. opens his mouth, is about to comment awkwardly on the supposed lovers' careful attempts to avoid each other when someone starts knocking, forcefully and frantically, on the front door. A.R. frowns, entire face creasing with worry as he makes the quick ten steps over to the front door. Jake and Callie's gazes follow him.

The door opens to reveal a young man with a messenger bag slung over his person.

“Ammar – what's wrong?” A.R. frowns with worry. “You look as though someone has died.”

“They have.” The boy twists the bag's strap in his hands, eyes growing wider and wetter by the second. “I-it's the capital, sir. They're saying...”

The boy in charge of delivering A.R.'s mail opens his mouth, and although his lips, his tongue, and his teeth move, Jake can't comprehend what he's saying. He barely registers A.R.'s hand flying to his chest, face stricken, or the way the Ammar boy takes off his uniform cap and holds it over his heart.

The sound of ceramic smashing onto the ground and liquid splashing out causes three pairs of eyes to snap, all at once, to him. Jake's fingers flex and he realizes he's dropped his mug. His mouth is open but no sound is coming out. A.R.'s eyes are brimming with tears.

“It's hard on me too, my good boy,” the older man laments. He smiles, but without happiness. “I knew you had a revolutionary soul in you, from the moment we met. No doubt we'll be set back-”

“I don't understand,” Jake's voice says. “How can he be dead?”

A.R. shakes his head. “It's such a shame. He seemed for sure-”

“No,” Jake cuts in. “No, I mean. How is he dead. He can't... _die._ He _can't_ die, it must be some...” His hands are shaking. “It must be some bullshit propaganda, meant to lower morale.”

Ammar's eyes are as wide open as his mouth. “W-well, mister, th-they saw him. Everyone saw him. When they went to storm the castle, she. The empress, she held out... his head, like a-a trophy...” The boy bursts into a whole new round of tears, and he scrubs at his face desperately to ward them away. And Jake, he just. He just stares.

“He can't be dead,” he says again. “Dirk Strider can _not_ be dead-!”

He turns to Callie, hands out in askance, but her lower lip trembles, and. She meets his gaze, shakes her head at him. “He most certainly can be, Jake. And he is.”

“They saw him,” Ammar blubbers. “They saw h-his blood, she mounted his head on a pike and the crows a-ate it-”

“No,” Jake says, shaking his head. “No, no, you can't prove it. You can't prove that was him. Look-alikes mean nothing, I mean, people have got fucking _magic,_ they can take any old hunk of flesh and magic it to look like a revolutionary leader if they damn well want to!”

“Jake-”

“ _NO!_ ” All three other people visibly shake at the force of his shout. His fists are clenched and he's breathing heavily, glaring at them all, daring them to challenge him and... He's going to throw up, right on A.R.'s nice hardwood floors, so he shoves his way past the mail boy, into the yard, and runs about ten feet before he doubles over into the grass and starts to heave.

His throat tastes like coffee grounds and it contracts painfully, he coughs, hard, his stomach jumps and gets hot, but he doesn't throw up. Something wet starts hitting the dirt, turning it dark, and he suddenly realizes he's crying. Fucking crying, over the death of somebody who cannot be dead. He swipes angrily at his eyes, then gives up trying to wipe up what's there and just presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, blocking the flow of tears directly.

The others hang back at the front door, too nervous to encroach on his space should his volatility be turned on them. A.R. looks at Callie in askance.

She hesitates. “He's very deeply devoted to the Revolution, you see,” she explains, and they nod in understanding. “He even met Dirk, uh, a few times, worked very closely with him until we both retired.” She lays gentle hands on their shoulders, guides them inside. “Let's give him him some room to mourn.”

Ω

It's pitch black, save for the stars above and the lights from the cabin nearby. Ammar has long since left, but Jake hasn't moved a muscle, has been sitting in the yard for hours just staring at his hands.

There's a rustle of grass and suddenly Callie is crouching down beside him. Her hand lights on his shoulder and, after a moment, he puts his hand over hers and holds it there. His hand is just large enough to cover hers, but not to dwarf it.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” Callie whispers.

Jake chews his lower lip, stopping when he realizes he's gored it enough today. “There is no loss. The demon told me Dirk would be kept alive. He has an obligation to hold his end of the bargain. Dirk can't be dead.”

“He's not a _real_ demon! He's a monster for which your people have no name. How in the world any of you keep mistaking him for being in the same class as a creature born from grimdark is beyond me.” She gives a sigh laced with anger. “I've _told_ you a thousand times already that he's manipulating you. And this _proves_ it. Jake...”

“No.” Jake shakes his head, ignoring the way her voice breaks. “No, this doesn't prove anything. Dirk can't really be dead. How did the Condesce have his body, if it was the demon who killed him, huh? How, Callie?”

She shakes her head. “I-I don't know for sure, but I mean, his grasp has always been far-reaching, Jake, he could just as well be controlling her.”

“Oh, that's – that's a load of _bullocks,_ Callie, and you know it!”

He's seething, now, but it doesn't drive her to pull away. “I know it must hurt so badly, Jake. I know it, but. You have to face the possibility that he's really _gone_.”

He's bewildered. He's furious. H-he won't stand for this! “I refuse – I _refuse_ to entertain such nons–! He's _alive_ , Callie!” His voice cracks. The sound makes him feel thirteen. “I was promised!”

“If you really believe that,” she whispers, “then why have you spent the last ten hours in the yard, if not to mourn him?”

And then he doesn't reply, because he'd like to pretend that he doesn't know the answer to that question, that _she_ doesn't know the answer to that question.

They stare into the woods. Callie's hand squeezes his shoulder. “It's over, Jake. Let me go.”

His hand slides away from hers. His voice is rough with grief. “Give me time to think.”

After a few minutes more, he stands. He holds his hand out to her, and although she hesitates, she takes it. And then they return to the cabin for the night.

Ω

They take up a pattern. Jake sits in the back yard and stares out into the wilderness, his hands jammed into his pocket, secretly stroking the handle of the pistol the demon gave him so many months ago. Callie looks out the living room window at him but does not leave the house, not after the first time. He'd pulled the pistol out and, without looking at her, told her A.R. probably needed her help around the house. She'd immediately turned on her heel and left him alone.

Jake only ever comes inside for meals or to sleep, and even then, he says little. A.R.'s own grief has faded to complacency, and, although he missed the incident with the gun, he feels deeply apprehensive of his guest. Jake is a traumatized, wild animal coiled tightly in on himself, waiting for the right incentive to rear up and take everyone, friend or foe, down. These revolutionary types, A.R. tells Callie, they never just mourn, you know. They get angry. They get revenge.

But Jake isn't angry. Not even when Callie crashes outside on the sixth day and cries, “You have to let me go! It's _over,_ Jake! Ammar has told us, time and time again, what news is coming in from the city! Dirk is dead! Even h-his sister's disappeared-”

“Quiet,” Jake says, not once tearing his gaze from the horizon. He imagines sitting here all day has made him able to sense the microscopic movement of the sun and the moon across the sky. “I'm waiting for the right sign.”

“You've-! You've already got-!” as she sputters, he turns to her, fixes her with a severe look. After a while, she finally calms down and says, “Fine. Stay out here. Keep an innocent girl waiting!”

She storms away.

Ω

_It's my fault,_ Jake thinks. Behind Derse's smog, the sunset diffuses and spreads, lighting the sky like hellfire.  _Dirk is dead and it's all my fault._

His eyes burn. His fingers tremble. His lips part and he lets out a sob that wracks his entire body in a way that has become utterly alien to him. He brings his hand to his mouth, but it's too late; the floodgates have opened and he is drowning, drowning in guilt.

Dirk is dead because he didn't get there fast enough.  _If I'd only delivered Callie sooner, if only we hadn't stopped so many times, if only I'd known..._

But he didn't. He didn't, and now, because of him, an entire country is doomed.

The sunset seems to spin around him. His head is weightless and it's suddenly harder than ever to breathe this air, even miles away from the factories in the capital.

He wasn't fast enough. He was given the chance of a lifetime to save Dirk and he wasn't fast enough. He wasted the chance. He wasted months of his life. It's all his fault, it's all his fault that now Dirk won't ever, ever lead his army again. He won't ever run his finger along his maps, pointing out the routes through the city most crucial to invasion plans, he won't ever wield a sword, or give a speech to a big crowd about the right to equality, he won't ever fall into bed exhausted with his day's work or write letters to Jake by candlelight or, after months apart, gather Jake into his arms like a drowning man grasps for the shoreline, he... He won't ever touch Jake's face and smile that small, cryptic smile, won't ever close his eyes when Jake leans in to kiss him, he won't ever find out about Jake's feelings or tell Jake his feelings or talk at all to anyone ever again because, while the demon may have killed him, Jake could've stopped it, but he didn't. Jake has failed Dirk.

Even as his sobs die down, Jake's entire body is still wracked with the force of his grief. He feels, not for the first time, but perhaps the most intensely he ever has, that he is powerless. He is just a man with a gun. Take that away, and he is nothing but meat and bone. He hasn't any cosmic significance. He hasn't enough magic to float a feather. He...

Jake lifts his face from his hands. The sky has grown dark. But he can still see everything just fine.

Jake English is powerless. But Lord English is not.

Ω

Seven days of contemplation come and go before Jake staggers into the living room at 8am on a Wednesday morning and says, “I've packed up, Callie. After breakfast, we're out of here.”

“Where are we going?” Her eyes are alight, like civilization seen through the fog after a long voyage on a stormy night. Her face sags with exhaustion, but she hasn't given up hope, and it shines through her expression, even now.

Jake sets his jaw before answering. “West.”

She stares at him, the light in her eyes snuffed out in an instant.

A.R. clears his throat. “So soon?” he asks. “I feel as though you only just got here...”

Jake sets their backpacks down by the kitchen table. “Yeah. Sorry to impose on you for so long.”

A.R.'s denial is far from convincing. “No, no, don't be sorry. You kids needed a place to-”

Callie's chair scrapes deafeningly as she pushes it back, jumping to her feet. “I'm not going!”

A.R. looks incredulous. Jake sighs. “Callie-”

“ _NO!_ ” She starts backing away, towards the door. “I'm not going with you. It's not fair! My brother has _nothing_ to offer you!”

“W... what, what's going on?” A.R. asks, bewildered.

Callie turns to him, pointing wildly at Jake. “He's not my husband! H-he's been keeping me prisoner for months, now. If he walks out of here with me, I'm going to be killed! Please, you have to help me!”

A.R. looks at him, wide-eyed, mouth gaping. Deciding it's not worth the strain of lying any longer, Jake pulls his gun out of his pocket, points it straight at her, and cocks it. “You're coming with me.”

They stare each other down.

“M-my god, boy,” A.R. whispers, breaking the silence. “what's the matter with you?”

Jake points the barrel at him instead. “Be quiet,” he orders. Then, looking directly at Callie, “See? Now you've got an innocent life involved. Come with me and he gets to live.”

Her mouth opens and closes. “J-Jake-”

“Calliope,” he says, knowing without knowing why, the sound of it heavy on his tongue. “ _Now._ ”

She stands there, jaw still working, shocked to hear it spoken in full for first the first time in millennia. But then her posture loosens, her face slackens. “Okay,” she says, nodding. “Okay. Take me. Let's go.”

Jake picks up both packs by their straps, holding them out. She takes one and throws it over her shoulder. Jake jerks the gun towards the front door and she starts walking. He grabs her roughly by one arm and starts to usher her out.

“Hey,” A.R. shouts. He finally stands up from the table. “Hey-”

“Stay where you are,” Jake snarls, turning and pointing the gun at him. “Don't follow us.”

A.R.'s eyes are wide. But then they narrow. He starts walking towards them. “I didn't get where I am in life by obeying bullies like you!”

“Is that why you ditched the capital right before the siege on the throne?” Jake mocks. Then, cocking the gun, “ _Back off._ ”

“No,” Callie begs, twisting to look at him, “you've done all you can! I'm sorry I asked you to help, just, please. Just listen to Jake and stay away, for your own safety!”

“Let go of the girl,” A.R. says.

Jake narrows his eyes. “Or what? I'm armed and you're not.”

And that's when A.R. lunges for the gun. It's pandemonium from there, grasping hands, jabbing elbows, punches thrown but somehow the pistol ends up in Jake's hand. He could've sworn he saw it fall to the ground, out of his reach, but here it is, and it fits in his fingers so perfectly and he pulls the trigger.

A.R. sounds exactly like the dying stag did, a low, drawn out “Oooh” passing his lips as he bends over, fingers grasping at his gut. Candy red pours between his fingers and he slumps down onto the floor, face first, back contracting desperately as he sucks in air.

“Y-you shot him,” Callie gasps. Then, louder, more hysterical, “ _You shot him!_ ”

Jake's skin feels as though it's been exposed, bare, naked, to a winter storm – cold, and. Numb, so frightfully numb that he squeezes Callie's arm extra hard to make sure he's still tethered to this body, he can still feel. “C-c'mon,” he mutters, and he drags her from the cabin as she wails.

“He's dying!! Jake he's _dying_ and town's so far away, p-please – Jake! _Jake!_ ”

Ω

“Your brother may not be a real demon. He may not be bound by contract. But he's ancient. And he's powerful.”

She had cried so hard that she threw up. He wanted to shake her, choke her, scream in her face, but instead he pushed her away from him and watched her stumble forward, then curl up in a ball on the ground and sob.

“You f-fool,” she cries. “Nobody can resurrect the dead!”

He doesn't answer that. He just watches the flames of the campfire dance until his eyes hurt.

Callie... Callayah, Cal-something. A word had jumped to his lips, unbidden. The pistol had glowed hot and bright in his hand and he had suddenly known what to say, to stop her from leaving. And the shape of it, on his tongue...

It'd felt like telling his mom that the one time he ran away as a kid was to find his father. It'd felt like screaming at Dirk that he didn't love him, not the way he wanted. It'd felt like taking Callie's hands in his and whispering _I am a bad person and there is no hope left for me._

But for the life of him, he can't remember it. Callie's true name has left behind little but a bitter, deathly taste on his tongue.

Ω

Even out on the road, it's hard to ignore. It started when Dirk first disappeared roughly five months ago, mere whispers, but now it has grown to a roar.

_The Prince is dead. He died for us._ Now, just as easily as they cry messiah, they call him a martyr. They (a nebulous they) hang etchings of his face up in town squares and shrink them down small, carry them close to their hearts, pin on the inside of their jackets, hang them from their necks like protective amulets.

Some sea dwellers look away. Others – well. The last time Jake and Callie tried to stock up on supplies in a nearby town, laying low for reasons unspoken and left to bleed hours from those who could hear him scream, a fight had broken out in the middle of the street. It was a wild flurry of all castes and species, and Jake had no idea who was taking what side in the brawl. He just grabbed Callie and dragged her back down the lane, the sound of wands popping and curses being shouted rising higher and higher.

“Plenty of women died just like him,” Callie whispers. “That Roxy girl still hasn't been found, but even if they do miss her, nobody's made her into a martyr the way they did before Dirk's body was revealed. If she disappears for as long as Dirk did, I bet you anything that they'll forget her.”

“You're unusually bitter today,” Jake replies, dryly.

“I care about the downtrodden.”

“Yes, but you rarely express anger over it.” Or express anger over anything, really.

“You don't see me as an angry person because I don't _let_ you see me that way,” she snaps. “I've been doing everything in my power to make myself appear worthy of your mercy, but I'm done being nice.”

“Yes, sure you are.”

“I _am._ You were right – killing you with kindness is useless! I'm tired of living in fear of you hurting me! You can't see that I'm worthy of keeping my own life, and so I'm not going to be nice to you anymore.”

“You don't have it in you to be mean. We've been together more than two months, now, and in that time, if I so much as scraped my knee, you came running to fix it.”

“Because I wanted you to _not to hurt me!”_ She stares at Jake, incredulous. “Okay,” she says. “Maybe, in the beginning, I genuinely thought you had some goodness left in you, something I could appeal to by being gentle. But I've always been afraid for myself with you. There hasn't been a _second_ that I have trusted you not to do something drastic.”

Anger, like lava, rises up in Jake's chest, and by the time it reaches his mouth, it comes out as, “ _Calliope! Stop. Talking._ ”

She clamps her mouth shut. But her eyes, still boring into his, are narrowed. And brimming with tears.

Ω

Still, he wonders if what she's said is true – of course  _he'll_ remember Roxy forever. They grew up together. They were friends. But she isn't that sweet little sister and dear friend to everybody. As strange as it seems, there are those to whom she is no one, just a radical who disappeared as quickly as she rose to glory.

He's still bewildered by who she is to this country, is bewildered by the thought of her leading a revolution, period. Jake used to wonder if it wasn't another Roxy Strider. The chances were nonexistent, of course, but Dirk has always been defiant, always been a radical. Roxy was always more like Jake. She did what she could to stay out of trouble. While she was in Prospit, she wanted to be well-liked, for her brother to be safe and happy, and... well. Little else. And now she's the next Dirk, Princess of the Revolution, savior of the downtrodden.

And Jake? Jake has kidnapped the last of a species, and, against all reason, is bringing her to her doom. Funny how people change.

Ω

Surprisingly, perhaps to both of them, sightings of the Rogue Princess reemerge. Something is brewing in the capital, and the closer Jake and Callie get to the border, the more paranoid he becomes, and the more dead-set on avoiding the capital altogether. They'll have to avoid following the railroad for a while, and though they both lament the thought of spending yet more time out in a tent, sleeping on the ground, this proves a good decision. Or at least, avoiding the capital proves a good decision.

Roxy is alive. And on the same day she is spotted, the capital city is completely and utterly destroyed, taking Derse's dictator – and hundreds of civilians, thousands of homes, and nearly all of the reigning government – with it. Again, no one is sure if Roxy herself survived, but the town is abuzz with excitement and horror at the realization that Derse is simultaneously free from a tyrannical reign and totally without a government. Jake grabs Callie and tries to get them out of the town as fast as they can before riots break out (because he's got no doubt in his mind that they will), and they manage to get out onto the open valleys of western Derse before the refugees from the city really start to take the countryside by storm.

Jake makes sure to avoid the capital like the plague, but the threat of meeting other people, newly homeless people, frightfully nationalistic people pushes their route down further and further south, so that they cannot make their way northwest as they need to, and have to keep heading west.

By the time they reach it, Jake realizes, the wall dividing Derse and Prospit will be positively crawling with refugees. Innocent, homeless civilians, as well as lowblood radicals, Humanists, and Loyalists, armed to the teeth with guns and wands and a bitter resentment that could ignite a match with a glare.

And Jake's got to get past all of them.

 


	7. The Prodigal Daughter Returns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who's back (back again)   
> guess who's back???? (tell a friend)

No one can See the future as it definitely will be. There are options – infinite options to be picked out of the cosmic void. But as for which events actually _do_ end up happening, well. Sometimes it can be helped. And sometimes it's a crapshoot. Sometimes what you get isn't what your visions, magical or imagined, foretold. Sometimes, you don't recognize which path you're on until you're living it out.

Even the most powerful of Seers are surprised on a regular basis. It wouldn't be any fun otherwise.

Ω

The grass is wet and there are noises coming from over the hill. Jake strives to keep his breathing shallow, his body pressed flat to the raised earth, his hearing strained for clues as to where the strangers are going. Callie is pressed against his side, a knife in her hand, trembling with fear. She would tell him she doesn't know how to look menacing, she'd ask him how many there seem to be, she'd say a myriad of things but fear has rendered her mute. She opens her mouth and her teeth chatter, so she clamps her mouth shut again.

It's been a harrowing last three days. As they get closer to Derse's border, they get closer to the swarm of refugees from the capital who have made their way west. Last night, Jake had offered her the knife with a surprising lack of argument, so she could protect herself if people attacked her while he was gathering firewood. She'd been a shaking mass of terror by the time he got back, the crash of his body through a nearby bush sending her into a panic attack. He'd held her face, slid the knife out of her hands, and talked quietly, idly to her until her breaths came normal and her hands stopped shaking. Then he'd pulled away, telling her to get in the tent. For the next several days, they reserved fires for the daytime, careful to keep the flames small so the smoke wouldn't draw attention. Then, the next day, they moved swiftly on from their campsites.

But now – now there are strangers just over the hill. Jake's green eyes are hard and determined behind the cracked lens of his spectacles. He stares at the line at the top of the hill and then, slowly, cautiously, he crawls his way up, trying to look over the peak without letting those on the other side know he is there.

But before he can get a glance in, a rather loud shout from the other side causes him to duck his head, to retreat. He bites his thumbnail, still glaring at the hilltop.

Callie blinks. “Th-that sounded like a noise of pain.”

Jake grunts in response.

“What if somebody needs our help?”

“I'm not risking our safety for the sake of some strangers.”

Callie gives an annoyed huff, but she doesn't say more, fearful of attracting attention. She listens carefully and notes the number of voices she can identify. There are no more shouts, just quiet conversation. The voices may even be a bit... concerned.

Jake's lips are nearly touching Callie's ear when he whispers, “Do you want to stay here, or do you want to come with me?” She bites her lip, battling with all manner of possibilities before she shakes her head roughly. “I want to stay here.”

Jake cocks his gun, pauses. Then he leans back into her ear. “If they come around the corner. If I don't return. Run.”

Her black eyes are wide in askance, but he doesn't bother sticking around to see if she has anything to say to that. He edges towards the hillside, both hands on the gun, movements slow and careful. And then he rushes around the hillside.

The initial terror of seeing four faces outnumbering him quickly subsides. A white, blond human man draws his sword and points it at him, but Jake clearly has the upper hand with a fire arm. One of the party, another white, blond human, a woman, is on the ground with a little, black carapace man. They're both swaddled with rags and look sickly, empty hands spread out in front of the measly fire in the center of their camp. The woman starts to reach inside her shawl and Jake points the gun in her direction. “Don't. Don't, whatever it is, don't touch it or I swear to god.”

“Don't _you,_ ” the man with the sword snarls. He's significantly older than Jake. All of these people are much older than him. Except – except for the person sitting on a boulder, who is slowly rising to her feet. Jake spares her a panicked glance, and... And then he looks at her, really looks at her. And his hands feel as if they are holding a thousand pounds. So he lowers his gun.

The girl standing is now walking towards him. She is taller than he remembers her being, with short, blond hair that curls awkwardly around her face, obviously left unkempt for days. Her eyes are an unnatural shade of pink and her lips, paler than he's used to seeing them, split into a mischievous grin.

“Jake English,” whispers Roxy Strider. “Is that really you?”

“Roxy,” Jake says, and his voice cracks embarrassingly over the name. Just out of his line of sight, the man with the sword looks back and forth between the two young people.

It hits him. “Jake English?” he asks. “Jake English, as in – as in Jade's kid? A-as in, Dirk's-?”

For an instant, Jake is terrified as Roxy closes the space between them, expecting a slap, a demand of what the hell happened to her brother, but then her arms are around him and she's so much taller than he remembers, her head leans to rest on his shoulders, and she asks, “How the hell are you alive?” and it doesn't sound like an accusation at all. She pulls away to inspect him, eyes trailing from his face to his feet. “Why are you in  _Derse?_ Were you captured by the Condesce with Dirk? How did you ever get away?”

Jake, overwhelmed by the bombardment of questions and emotions, stutters, “I-I don't know. I don't know where to even begin, Roxy. I don't know what to tell you.”

“So tell us everything,” the man with the sword quips, pointing the weapon at Jake. Roxy rolls her eyes.

“For heaven's sake, Dave, put that thing down,” the woman in the shawl orders. She starts to cough, hard, leaning in on herself. The little carapace man rubs her back, looking troubled. The man named Dave guiltily lowers his sword, stabbing its point into the ground and leaning, hard, on the hilt with both of his hands for support. Jake notices him keeping a lot of weight off of his left leg.

The woman's coughing fit ends. She rubs her mouth carefully, keeping her palm turned inwards, even as it disappears into her shawl. She looks at Jake then, and her eyes are, somehow, as violet as the twilit sky. “My name is Rose. I'm Roxy's mother.” She gestures to Dave. “This, as you've heard, is Dave. He is my husband, and Roxy's father. This,” she says, gesturing to the carapace at her side, “is the Mayor. Yes, it's silly, but it's the name he likes best.”

The Mayor waves at Jake enthusiastically. Jake waves back dazedly, first with his gun in his hand, and then, after he's fumbled the thing back into his coat pocket, empty-handed.

Because they already know his name and he has no idea what else to say, Jake replies, “I've heard so much about you.” Both Strider parents smile politely at him, but then a long silence ensues.

Roxy perks up, looking over Jake's shoulder. “And who's the little lady with the big knife?”

Jake's brow furrows. “Huh?” Then, remembering, he spins around to see Callie standing there.

He instantly realizes why Roxy's not on full alert. Callie's holding the knife clumsily, like one would a bat, and her expression is not one of aggression but wonder. Jake tries to catch her eye, to start to speak, but Callie's gaze is fixed on Roxy and her face blooms into the first smile she's made in weeks.

“It's you,” she whispers, and Jake almost swears he sees her eyes glittering with tears. “It's really you!”

Roxy grins back, adjusts her stance so she's even taller. “Hello,” she says. “Are you a fan?”

Callie nods rapidly. “I-I've heard all about you! I think it's so wonderful, everything you've done for your people.”

Oh, hell. Jake looks between the two women and thinks,  _not another one._ But even without knowing her name, Roxy's already looking at Callie like she's the be-all and end-all.

“What's your name?” she asks.

“Callie.”

Roxy grins. “Callie? Cute name. This is my dad, Dave, my mom, Rose, and our family friend, the Mayor.” As she says each name, she points vaguely to the person, without turning around to make sure her aim is right. She doesn't take her eyes off Callie even for a second.

Callie's smile is awkward and shy. “It's nice to meet you all,” she says, voice sincere. “You're all such incredible people! What you're doing is really...”

As she gushes, the party soaking up the praise, Jake inwardly frowns. They'd heard their fair share about the events in the capital these past few weeks, sure, but he hadn't realized just how intently Callie had been listening to it all. Save for when she got all annoyed over Dirk being martyred, she hasn't brought the topic up around Jake all that much. But then again, it's not like they ever really talked to each other.

“You're so sweet,” Roxy tells Callie. She turns to Jake, flicks her gaze between the two of them. “How do you two know each other?”

“He picked me up along the way,” Callie says quickly, and, terrified she'll tell them all the truth, Jake interjects, “Yes! I was making my way through Derse, trying to find my way home when I met Callie. I-I rescued her, from. Bandits.”

She shoots him a look, but at his hard stare, she relents. “Yes. I owe him my life.”

“Wow,” Roxy says with a grin. “Thank god he found you.” She stops herself, however, to frown inquisitively at Jake. “But how'd you get stuck in the middle of Derse?”

“I just. Woke up there,” he says with a nervous smile and a shrug. “I-I couldn't remember, I mean. One minute I was with. I was with Dirk, and the next, I woke up halfway across the country with no recollection of what happened. And a pounding headache!”

“That sounds familiar,” Roxy says to her father, who nods. Jake is confused by the exchange, but isn't given the chance to ask about it, because Dave says, “So this proves it. Dirk rode out to meet Jake and they got ambushed.” He shakes his head, expression hard. “Fucking. Reckless bastard, your brother.”

A certain solemnity passes over everyone's faces, and Jake suddenly feels deeply, deeply uncomfortable. “Ah,” he says. “I'm incredibly sorry...”

Roxy waves dismissively at him. “No, no. Don't be. It's not your fault.”

“Dirk _was_ reckless,” Rose says, her lips twisting into a sad smile. “And extremely manipulative. If he hadn't encouraged you to meet him out there alone like that, he would've eventually snuck away and got caught doing something else. He never liked to notify people before he did certain, shady things because he always thought that it was nobody else's business and that he could defend himself, but. In the end, he was wrong.” Her eyes are wet and she purses her lips, swallows. She blinks hard a few times and, within seconds, has gotten her emotions under control, and holds herself with an elegance uncanny for a sick person. Nobody else looks ready to cry, but they don't meet anyone else's gaze for a while.

Jake is brought back from the contemplation of his guilt with a clap on the shoulder. He looks up into Roxy's face, and she's still smiling.

“Where you and your friend headed?” she asks, nodding at Callie. He barely gets a chance to flounder before she suggests, “Back to Prospit?”

“Y-yes,” he relents, “we're going that way.”

Roxy nods, briskly. “Us, too.” she hesitates. “I know, it seems like we're running away. But our army has been utterly destroyed, and we need to get some resources together.”

“Oh, the thought hadn't even crossed my mind,” Jake replies honestly. It is, however, crossing his mind now.

Roxy grins. “How about you and your girl travel with us?”

Callie says, “I'm not his girl,” about the same time Jake, having no idea what else to do, stutters out, “S-sure.”

Roxy squeezes his shoulder so hard he thinks it's going to bruise. “Welcome to the family, then! I'm sure you always envisioned joining us in a more... legal, Dirk-related sense, but I figure this post-apocalyptic-type wilderness-bonding's a pretty sweet deal, too, for a rugged outdoorsman like yourself. Right?”

Jake hopes his smile isn't as ragged as he feels. “Yeah,” he says, faintly. “I feel like I've returned home.”

Ω

By the fire that night, he contemplates telling Roxy the truth about Callie. He wants to tell Roxy about the demon who took Dirk, how he's been promised Dirk returned to him in exchange for her. He wants to tell her everything Callie has said about not trusting the demon, and to ask her, as a person who's always been more skilled at magic than him, if it's possible Dirk's death could have been faked. And, if worse comes to worst... he wants to ask whether anyone, ancient or recent, has ever perfected necromancy.

But seeing how Roxy looks at him as if he is the same boy hero who ran around with her in the yard and mooned over her brother and whose greatest sin was his obliviousness to the feelings of others... The desire to erase, to restart, is too great.

Jake tells Roxy a story where he wakes up in Derse with no money, no possessions, nothing but the clothes on his back. He tells her about the struggle to find those kind enough to help him. He tells her a made-up version of his meeting with Callie, wherein he saves her instead of the other way around, and he tells her about having to work odd jobs before he gained any semblance of an income that could get him home. Roxy asks him what towns he passed through, and, after some hesitation, he answers honestly. She's deeply interested in hearing about the prejudices, the close-knit protective vibes, and the influence of the capital of the various country and port towns. She says that she hasn't traveled Derse as much as she should have. She wonders out loud how she can be a leader when she's incapable of representing the whole, and then. Laughs. Changes the subject.

Jake is relieved when Roxy starts to talk about herself. She's still chatty enough to fill a silence for hours on end, and he finds that he is genuinely interested in what she has to say. Roxy has changed a lot physically, what with the obvious growth spurt, but her already expansive life experience seems to radiate through her bones and make mature, womanly lines on her face, broaden her shoulders, embolden her posture. She holds herself like a high-ranking military officer and speaks with the charm of a diplomat, or, no, a queen.

“I know I took it initially out of... obligation to Dirk, out of guilt, you could say, but it became truly important to me. Hell, I'm going to just say it – I _found_ myself in this cause. I'd always liked helping people, I mean, I've never been _heartless,_ but something about this is just. It's so much _bigger_ than donating some food, or. Being a good daughter.”

Guilt. Jake knows a thing or two about that. He wonders what Roxy would do to him, if he told her Dirk's fate wasn't wasn't her fault, but –

“I used to want to be a lady of the sciences,” Roxy says, “or. Or a freaking physician, but then I got to experience the satisfaction of getting a hundred thousand people out of a dangerous city, o-of taking down a mass murderer, and. And I don't deserve it. I don't deserve that position of leadership anymore, because I let the capital be destroyed.”

“Oh, Roxy,” Jake crows, “ _no._ No, it was _war,_ you can't help what war... I mean, you weren't controlling every soldier, a-and you couldn't control the Condesce's side.”

Roxy's eyes drift to the her family's tent, to which her mother has recently retired for the night. “I let things slip by me. And now I've got to pay a price.” Despite the somber topic, she smiles serenely into the fire. “But I'm glad I got to live it while I did, you know? Because I never would've figured things out for myself otherwise. I am truly, truly grateful that I got to do some good in this rotten world.”

Jake nods. He tries to stare at the flames like Roxy, but they make his eyes hurt. He pulls off his glasses and tries to busy himself wiping them clean, but his filthy shirt only smudges the lenses.

He wonders if maybe, on his own journey, he has also found himself. The thought makes him shudder.

A little ways away from them, Dave is speaking to the Mayor and Callie in hushed whispers. Callie looks deeply concerned, and keeps shaking her head. The Mayor keeps pointing to his palm.

“He's quiet, isn't he?” Jake asks, gesturing to the Mayor. It takes Roxy a minute, but she follows where he points and realizes who he's talking about.

“Oh,” she says. Then, “Yeah, he. He's been through a rough time.”

“It seems like you all have.”

She sucks in a breath and then lets it out, very slowly. “Not quite as bad as him.”

Callie gently places her hands on either side of the Mayor's face and closes her eyes. Her chest is moving in a steady rhythm. Her hands start to glow white. Dave watches very intently, leaning towards them.

The light dies and Callie opens her eyes. Her expression is sad. The Mayor wilts somewhat, and Dave covers his face with his hands.

Roxy frowns. “You stay here. I need to talk to them.”

She gets up, leaving Jake alone at the fire. He watches her talk to her dad, sees him storm into the tent. The Mayor is dwiddling his thumbs and Callie looks immensely disappointed. After a moment, Jake gets up to meet them.

“It was my idea,” Callie's saying. “Don't be mad at Dave. I'm the one who told him I'm a healer and I'm the one who offered to help.”

“Yeah, but did the Mayor himself approve this?”

The Mayor unwraps some bandage on his hand. Then, after some adjustments, he holds his hand up. There is a bandage tied there that reads, in big, scrawling letters,  _YES_ .

Roxy sighs. “Did you agree because you thought it'd work, and  _not_ because you thought it'd please Dad?”

After a moment of hesitation, the Mayor lowers his hand and looks at his lap.

Callie bites her lip. “Your father's desperate, Roxy. He's just looking out for his friend.”

Roxy's face is grim. “Yeah, well. It's not his body to alter, is it?”

“If you're worried I'll mess it up, render him worse, then you don't have to. I do this sort of thing for a living, or. I used to. I'm very good.”

“I don't doubt you are,” Roxy assures her. “But you still need to be careful with that kind of stuff.”

“I was only assessing the damage. I wouldn't start changing him until I knew what I could do...”

They both look at Jake, then. He feels uncomfortable. “Um. What's going on?”

The Mayor stands up. He pats Roxy firmly on the shoulder, then takes his leave. She watches him slip into the tent.

“Did that feel like permission to you?” she asks. “Or was it just good night?”

“Er,” says Jake. “I mean. You don't have to tell me what's going on, if it's none of my business...”

Roxy rubs her neck. Stares at the ground. “The Mayor didn't make it out of the capital with us. We caught up with him later. We were lucky, we. We found him before he could be hurt further.” She swallows. “But, uh. He was a prisoner, for a while, before the capital was destroyed. They tortured him. He's alive, he's healthy, he says... He's told us he feels blessed, but. They cut his tongue out.”

Jake resists the urge to let his jaw drop open. His mouth tingles. “O-oh my god. I'm so sorry.”

“He's my dad's best friend,” Roxy says. She puts a hand on Callie's shoulder, smiles at her even though the corners of her eyes speak of weariness. “Thanks for trying to help them, but. The Mayor's deal is permanent, right?”

After a pause, Callie nods, looking guilty. “Yes. I'm sorry, but you can't just. Regenerate an entirely new tongue. I have nothing to work with, I...”

“It's okay,” Roxy reassures her, kneading her shoulder. “You did what you could. But, for the record, my dad's going to beat himself up about this for days, and he'll talk your ear off as he does so. You up for that?”

“Of course,” Callie says. “I'm only sorry _I_ couldn't do more myself.”

Roxy snorts. “You two are an unnecessarily guilty pair. You'll get along great.” She pats Callie a few times and then returns her attention to Jake. “So, now you know a little bit more about our band of misfits. Would you like to take first night watch, or should I?”

Ω

Because it is all they can do, they walk. They have no money, no worldly possessions aside from what was scavenged from ruins, and no way to pay for train fare (as well as no desire to encounter the remaining empress's men, and face whatever barbaric punishments come to revolutionaries now that Derse has descended into utter anarchy). Roxy carries an empty government-issue rifle for intimidation purposes. She says she initially trusted her magic would protect them, but ever since her final act of heroism in the capital, she hasn't been able to summon so much as a flicker of light. With a chuckle, she says, “Maybe what I did in the capital was my purpose in this life. Maybe I've fulfilled it, and now the universe has rescinded my powers for good.” She looks at her mother as she says it, but Rose doesn't reply. She has one arm wrapped around the Mayor's shoulders and is leaning heavily on him, her forehead covered in a light sweat. Her eyes flutter open and closed like she's struggling to stay awake. Dave offers to take her by the other arm, but Rose refuses, telling him to watch out for his leg.

Jake asks what feat Roxy could have possibly accomplished that would drain her of  _all_ of her magic, and she just shrugs. “It's a long story. You might not even believe me – a lot of people are saying that what happened in the capital was all just an illusion, or some mass hallucination spread by fear. I mean, it's definitely propaganda, but it also wouldn't be the first time such a thing happened, especially in Derse.” She raises her voice even though he's within earshot: “Hey, Dad – didn't people say they saw a monster in capital when the Condesce first invaded?”

“Monster?” Jake repeats. He looks over his shoulder with an incredulous look at Dave. “What kind?”

“I don't know,” Dave answers, frowning. “It's been a long time since that happened, and I mean, nothing came of the reports. Maybe, if it was real, it was a lusii that survived, or something...”

“No, not years ago,” Jake clarifies. “I mean – there was a monster in the capital? Just recently?”

“Oh, I imagine it's still there,” Roxy drawls. “Decaying away. It's part of the reason I don't think people can live there anymore, besides, I mean. That thing also smashed, like, a _thousand_ homes to pieces.”

“It's such an awful tragedy,” Rose rasps. After that, the group goes dead silent for a while.

Several hours later, Jake swallows through the dryness in his throat. “So, um. You killed it? The monster?” Roxy's nonchalant nod bewilders him. “ _How?_ ”

“Oh, you know,” she says with a shrug. “Magic.”

Magic. It's so simple a truth, and he wouldn't understand it if she were to try to expand the explanation because he knows nothing of magic.

But _still._ It feels too easy, this singular word. What kind of powerful being can shrug off the saving of a city with a one syllable answer?

He feels, yet again, awe in the face of Roxy. And maybe a little bit of fear.

They walk with the Strider parents at the back with the Mayor, and the three young people at the front, Roxy leading in the center. Jake and Callie have been actively avoiding looking at each other, so that now, when Callie gazes adoringly into Roxy's face, Jake drops his eyes to his feet, counting his steps.

“I don't think your magic's gone,” Callie insists. “You just have to rest up a little longer. Magic hardly ever just _disappears_. You just have to give your body time to recuperate.”

“Thank you, dear.” Jake doesn't even have to look at Roxy to know that the grin she's giving Callie is nauseating. Jesus – they've known one another one day and they're already inseparable. He'll have to get Callie alone at some point. Remind her to be more cautious about getting close to people.

He's distracted by the sound of Roxy sucking air into her teeth. She stops walking and hunches over, clutching her temples. The party stops immediately, and Callie, voice panicked, asks, “What is it, what's wrong? Do you need my help?”

Roxy, from where she's bent in on herself, shakes her head, nearly shakes her entire body. “No. No, no, no, it's just a headache I'm – _fuck –_ I'm _fine._ ”

She breathes through her teeth, as if concentrating hard enough will make it go away. Rose reaches forward and lays a gentle hand on her daughter's back.

“It's alright,” she says, voice low and smooth. “It will pass.”

And, a few more minutes of head-clutching later, it does. Roxy slowly uncurls herself, stands upright again, but her hands continue to hover around her ears, her eyes, her temples.

Callie's eyes are huge. “Dehydration?”

Roxy's expression is grim. “Regardless, we need to find some more fresh water and food soon. God knows we can only survive on berries and rabbits for so long.”

She shoulders past the concerned bodies hovering around her, and, as their party picks up its pace, she makes sure to walk just ahead of Jake and Callie, so that they can't see her face. She doesn't want them to worry about her. She wants them to trust she can lead them to salvation.

Dirk was the same way. It must run in the family.

Ω

It's pitch black. The only illumination Jake has is the flintlock pistol, just barely ghosting white on his hands, and the fire, which he occasionally drops sticks and dry leaves into. He strains his ears, waiting for signs of life, but there is not so much as a peep from the open wilderness, let alone the tents.

After watching it steadily for five minutes, Jake rises to his feet and approaches the tent where Callie sleeps. He stops just in front of the opening and stands again. Listens. There is no sound within. Jake's just reaching out to pull aside the tent flap when a hand lands on his shoulder.

Nearly jumping out of his skin with fright, Jake whips around to find Dave standing behind him, expression sheepish. “Didn't mean to scare you, kid.”

“Really? Sneaking up on me in the middle of the night when I'm awake solely for the purpose of anticipating an ambush, you didn't mean to startle me?” He almost shrugs Dave's hand off his shoulder, but the shameful wince the older man gives at his harsh words forces him to soften. “Did. Did you want to talk to me, or?”

Dave hesitates. “I'm sorry. That was stupid of me. I shouldn't have scared you.”

He heads back towards the firelight, rubbing his neck. He stands over by the fire, leaning, as always, on his sword for support. He has his back to where Jake is and he doesn't move from that spot. After a minute or two, Jake sighs, having come to terms with the fact he's not getting any alone time with Callie, and heads over to where Dave is standing.

Dave looks somewhere beyond the fire for a while before he addresses the young man standing next to him. He doesn't make eye contact. “You ever write your mom?”

Jake feels a stab of guilt. “I never had the chance to.” He's had nothing but free time for months, and, at the beginning, more than enough pocket money for some stationary and stamps.

Dave runs his hand over his jaw. A nervous habit. “She thought you were dead, you know.”

“Makes sense,” Jake replies lamely. “But I just couldn't tell her where I was. _I_ didn't know where I was for the longest time... I might've _lost_ time, between last seeing Dirk and awakening all the way out in Derse.”

What if he _had_ written to her? What was he supposed to say? _Dear Mom, Yes, I am alive. No, I'm not coming home. I need to find this girl and sacrifice her to a monster so I can get the boyfriend whose life I ruined back. Food and travel is expensive, so some money would be appreciated, but send it soon because I must move on to the next town. Also, do you have any bounty-hunting tips?_

Dave covers his mouth with his hand, is rubbing, is staring past the fire, and then he pulls his hand away and he says, “Your mom could've gotten you out of Derse. She could've gotten you home no problem.”

“Yes, well. As I think I've made clear, I didn't have the funds or the chance-”

“A stamp costs next to nothing,” Dave snaps. “You could've written to her during that inn job of yours. You could've begged people and I guarantee somebody would be benevolent enough to spare you some stationary.”

Jake swallows. “I'm sorry.”

“I'm not the one you should apologize to,” Dave retorts.

Jake feels himself getting angry. Not regular angry - it's a newer, more ruthless kind. He'll never get used to this sensation, the way it rises so fast and hot through his veins unlike anything he ever felt before he was stranded in this, this fucking wasteland of a country.

“So, is that all?” Jake snaps. “You came to me in the middle of the night to lecture me on how to be a good son?”

“That's half of it.” Dave flexes his grip on the hilt of his sword. “How long have you known Callie, really?”

Jake scowls. “What's that got to do with anything?”

“Everything,” Dave says. “She's a pretty girl – no beauty queen, for sure, but she's sweet and she's charming as hell. Being alone with a girl like that, all this time – after having just lost somebody you love, when you've been dumped into this whole new, unfamiliar world with nothing to your name but the clothes on your back-”

Jake decides to drop the no-eye-contact charade. He turns to Dave, asks, “What in the hell are you going on about?”

And Dave says, “I don't blame you for moving on, but you might as well own up to it.”

He's still refusing to meet Jake's eyes. Jake, conversely, refuses to move, to so much as _blink_ and break the glare he has focussed on the older man's face. “What are you accusing me of?”

Dave shrugs. “Dirk's been dead to you for far longer than he's actually been dead. You love that girl – don't deny it. You're always so close to her, you... you react to her every movement, you look at her when you think she isn't paying attention-”

“I _love_ Dirk,” Jake snaps. “How dare you accuse me of forsaking-”

“I didn't use that word-”

“You're _implying_ it!” Jake glares at him but Dave still won't meet his eyes. The older man gives a bark of a laugh, shakes his head, lowers his eyes to the dirt.

“You don't get it,” Jake barrels on. “You don't get it – I've moved on _least of anyone.”_

“How?” Dave finally turns and meets his eyes, red irises inhuman as they burn holes in Jake's gaze. “How the fuck are you doing that, hm? How the fuck is running away from your old life evidence that you've moved on the 'least?'”

_Because, you nosy lunatic, I'm the one who holds the key to rescuing your son!_ But Jake can't say that. Instead he says, “I don't have to explain myself to you. If you're angry at me for hanging around with some strange girl, fine. If you're angry at me for neglecting to contact my mother, fine. But none of your bitterness is going to change the fact that I'm the one who's here and Dirk isn't!”

They glare at one another for what seems like millennia. Then, just as Dave's opening his mouth, there are footsteps. So he closes his mouth, stares over Jake's shoulder. Jake turns around.

Roxy's standing there. “Um. I had another migraine, and it woke me up early. I figured I might as well take up my shift now.”

They trade guilty looks. Finally, Dave mutters a half-hearted goodnight to his daughter and brushes past her, heading back towards the tents. Jake is about to follow, to go to his own tent, but yet another hand on his shoulder stops him.

“Don't let him guilt you,” Roxy says, quietly. “But... be gentle with him, too. He's just lost his son.”

“And I've lost a lover.” Jake shrugs Roxy's hand off.

“Jake...”

“I'm tired,” he replies curtly, marching towards his tent. “Good _night_.”

Ω

Water. Water, rising, pushing, pushing her towards the center of the the whirlpool, tugging, dragging her down, filling her lungs and then there is a white light, and a pain unlike anything she's ever felt before.

Roxy jolts up from where she was slumped over herself, asleep, to clutch at her head. The shocking pain from her dream has faded to a dull throb in waking. She's rubbing her temples, trying to soothe the pain with touches that are probably too furious to do much good, when she looks up to see Callie standing on the other side of the fire, watching her.

“I couldn't sleep,” Callie says, her smile apologetic. “Bad dreams.”

“That makes two of us.” Roxy pats the ground next to her. “Come on over, make yourself comfortable.”

The troll girl doesn't hesitate. She joins Roxy beside the fire and makes a point of sitting close. Although they don't touch.

“What did you dream about?”

Roxy shakes her head. “I'd rather not talk about it. You?”

Callie mimics the action. “I'd rather not talk about it, either.”

They sit in silence, the fire just barely warding off the late night chill. Somewhere in the distance, a bird chirps inappropriately with the song of morning, even as the darkness hangs thick and unwavering.

“I'm used to this sort of thing,” Roxy blurts. When Callie looks at her curiously, she can't hold back the blush on her face – jeez. Nice segue, Roxy. Smooth. “I-I mean. This whole camping thing. We, the army, um. We trained in the wilderness a while, albeit, with better facilities, but. It's not unmanageable, this situation. It'll be a relief to return to a city, but this is manageable.”

“Yes,” Callie agrees. She drops her gaze to her hands, then brings it back up to Roxy's again. “Um. Do you, do you miss it? Being a part of a cause?”

Roxy shrugs. “I'm still part of a cause.”

“Do you miss being the leader, then? I mean. That's so forward of me, of course you're still a leader...”

Roxy shakes her head. “I don't think anybody wants me anymore. I don't blame them – I mean. It wasn't me who... who summoned that monster, and for all I know, the people who aren't denying its existence are blaming it on the Condesce. It was – it was a horrorterror, you know? Like the kind that were historically linked to the top of the troll caste. The empresses.”

“A horrorterror? O-out of water?” Roxy nods. Callie's mouth stays open in awe. “You... you took down a horrorterror?”

“Not before it leveled the city.” Roxy sighs. “I just... I know it's useless to say this. Because things don't change that easy. But I wish I could go back and do it all over.”

“You _saved_ everyone.”

“Yeah, not so much like I was hoping to.”

“You took down the Condesce and her followers, too!”

“The _demon_ took down the Condesce and leveled a city.” Roxy sighs and runs her fingers through her hair. “I just – what the fuck is the point of saving a country if you reduce it to shambles, you know? So we don't have a dictator anymore. So a ton of higher ups got killed. So what? If we went into town undisguised right now, we'd be dead. I'm public enemy number one of all those sea dwellers, and. And my whole party's at risk just by being with me – and, fuck, now I'm putting you and Jake at risk by inviting you along.”

She's rubbing her face with one hand, rubbing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose and just trying her hardest to ward off a stress headache when a hand lights on the one she has resting on the ground. Roxy peeks out from behind her fingers, and before she knows it, Callie is gently removing the hand she's using to abuse her face as well. Callie holds their hands between them, an expression on her face that makes Roxy feels comforted and, uh. Other things. She blushes and thinks, _Well, at least it's not my brother, this time._

“You will save Derse again,” Callie says. “It will not be easy. But there are those out there willing to follow you, who will help you nurse this phoenix from its ashes to glory.”

Roxy laughs. “That's a good metaphor,” she says. “But, uh. I don't know about any of that. I mean. These people have never been overly fond of us.”

“Why not?”

“Because! My parents grew up in Prospit. Hell, _I_ grew up in Prospit! We were nobles, twice over, by blood and then by promotion. The fact we destroyed the capital is all the excuse they need to force us to butt our noble, blond heads out.”

Callie is appalled. “But that... that's... they're just using you as a scapegoat!”

Roxy rolls her eyes. “Callie. They have a right to be pissed. We're pushy people. We pushed our way into the cause, we pushed our way into leadership. We've always cared, sure, but we've spent have our lives with silver spoons in our mouths. If people want me back, I'll return to them, no problem. But if they want me to step aside, well. I will. It's the people's revolution, after all. You have to listen to the people when they tell you what they want. ”

She summons a bit of bravery and kneads her hands over Callie's, feeling the shape of the knuckles, the length of her fingers. Callie pulls her hands away. Roxy tries not to feel too hurt as she watches Callie shove her hands under her thighs and look away.

“You're so brave,” Callie sighs. “You fight evil and injustice, and when people don't want you around, you don't get cross with them – you see things from their perspective. You show them compassion.” She pulls her knees up to her chest. “I want so much to be like you.”

Roxy shrugs. She adjusts the way she sits to angle herself a bit closer to Callie. “I'm not that great, trust me.”

“Don't say that.” Teeth gently biting lip.

They're close. They're close enough that Roxy can see every inch of those huge, black eyes, and is in awe of how clearly she can see her own reflection in them. Callie blinks slowly, those long, black lashes fluttering.

“You are human, you are flawed, but. But you are still so, so great. You were made for something _huge._ ”

Roxy laughs. “You sound like my mother.” She immediately regrets thinking about her mother, and hurriedly banishes the thought the moment Callie starts to lean in towards her.

There are clumsy footsteps, an awkward cough, and then Jake is standing across from them, looking, on the other end of the campfire, like he's standing in the flames. “It's my turn for watch duty.”

Roxy sighs and stands up. “Um, yeah. I'm falling asleep on the job, anyway.” She looks briefly at Callie but cannot bring herself to smile at the other girl, too mortified at being caught mid-kiss-attempt. She hurries away, sparing only one backwards glance once she's reaching the tent entrance. And then she's gone.

Roxy has barely left their earshot when Jake turns to Callie, expression fierce. “What were you two talking about?!”

“Nothing!” Callie stands and puts distance between them, before Jake even starts to approach her. “Not now that you've ruined everything!”

Jake grits his teeth. “Were you talking about me?”

“No, we weren't talking about you!” she snaps. “Everything isn't about you!”

She paces. Jake starts to remind her of the importance of concealing their relationship, but she cuts him off.

“You just can't _stand_ for me to be happy, can you?!”

“Need I remind you that I don't actually care if you're happy or not?” Jake replies. He watches her pace and scowl. “I care about my objective, which, might I say, isn't helped by letting you bat your eyes at every man, woman, and genderless consenting adult who comes into your vicinity. You're getting too close to her.”

Callie throws her hands up in the air. “Yes – god forbid I meet someone who doesn't treat me like dirt! God forbid I have an ounce of happiness on this miserable existence!”

“If you drag Roxy into this-”

“What? You'll kill her like you killed A.R.?”

He immediately closes the distance between them and grabs her, shakes her, hard. “You're whining and moaning on and on about how I won't let you get close to Roxy, I won't let you get close to the innkeeper, I won't let you get close to _me._ You're forgetting that my primary concern is not your happiness,” he hisses. “I care about getting-”

“Stop it!” Callie snaps. Her expression is defiant and it quiets him. “Stop with this _ridiculous_ act! Nobody in the entirety of the world is as heartless and single-minded as you are pretending-”

“Callie, my primary goal is getting you back to your broth-”

“Oh, god, are you _still_ on this?!” She stares at him, open-mouthed, and then, angry, shoves hard at his chest, succeeding in freeing herself from his grip. “You still want to take me to my brother? After everything? After seeing your friends, after confirming Dirk's dead, you _still-_ ” She stops herself, shakes her head. “I don't know why I'm so surprised. I don't!”

“Callie.”

“Jake, why don't we stay with these people?” Callie suddenly gets close to him again, her face rapidly changing from angry to desperate. “Let's just go to Prospit with them. We'll live happily ever after. You can see your mother, and I'll never tell Roxy about what you've done, a-and it'll be as if these past few months never happened!” She makes a grab for his hands but he quickly pulls them away, shoves them in his pockets. She looks upset, but she keeps talking. “Please, Jake. Don't you want all of this to go away? Don't you want to go back to life to normal, don't you want to be absolved?”

Jake leans in close. “If we did that,” he says, “it would be a lie.” He watches the light die in her eyes, and wonders how she finds the strength to keep putting hope into him, why it is she keeps trying to appeal to him when he shoots her down every time. “You can't just erase everything that's happened between us with a few cover up stories,” Jake goes on. “We'd be lying for the rest of our lives.”

“People lie all the time, anyways-”

“What has happened has _happened_. What I've done _I have done, because_ I _chose_ to do it,” he shouts, “and you shouldn't let me be redeemed when _I don't deserve it!_ ”

He stops himself, as if startled by his own words. “I mean...”

Her eyes are wide. “Jake...”

“From your perspective, I mean, I don't deserve... We're talking about from _your_...” He shakes his head. He's confused. “Don't – don't try to get out of this! You don't belong to this world! You don't belong to this form!” His hand is on her arm and he's hurting her, his voice is getting louder, but he can't stop himself, he's a whirlwind. “Everything about you is just an illusion upon a multitude of illusions! I'm taking you to your brother, and for all I care, you two can just fucking consign yourselves to whatever fate he has picked out for-”

Someone clears their throat. Jake and Callie turn and find, to their horror, that Rose is standing there, watching them. Jake starts to stutter a question.

“I couldn't sleep. Some people are making an awful lot of noise.” She cocks her head, stormy eyes hard. “Would you two care to explain yourselves?”

Dread settles into Jake's belly.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact! This is the first chapter in the whole series to specify which of Dave's legs was permanently injured


	8. The Walking Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOPS, forgot what day it was!

Almost no one is important in “The Grand Scheme of Things.” But given that most of us do not live long enough to see this Scheme reach its climax, our lack of importance to it hardly matters. To be perfectly honest, the “The Grand Scheme of Things” has almost no impact on any of our daily lives. To many of us, it is just as unimportant to us as we are to it.

To others, well. It is Everything. And vice versa.

Ω

After slinking off to bed, Jake had spent the rest of the night agonizing over what to do. It didn't matter what feeble excuses they gave Rose. It didn't matter that she let them get away. It didn't matter how much of their conversation she'd caught – she'd seen Jake grab Callie and she'd heard him shouting at her, and that was enough to damn him with this group of people forever. After hours passed and Jake was sure Rose wasn't going to sic her husband or anyone else on him for the night, Jake decided that he had to intercept her the next morning, preferably before Callie did, and try his best to get the situation sorted.

Unfortunately for Jake, exhaustion won out, and he ended up sleeping later than he intended.

Upon waking, he lays there for a few seconds, quilt wrapped haphazardly around his person, the sunlight streaming in through the open flap, enjoying the silence of being alone... and then, realizing he's probably the last one up, he sits up so fast he gives himself whiplash. Throwing the covers aside, he jumps to his feet and heads out of the tent, steeling himself for accusations and arguments and –

The rest of the party is awake, hovering by the blackened remains of the fire, Dave kneeling on the ground with his unconscious wife in his arms. For one crazy minute, Jake thinks they will blame him for this... until he realizes that no one has any reason to think he's involved with Rose in any way.

“She was doing so well,” Roxy mutters, sighs. “She was up and talking and everything...”

Dave's hand presses to his wife's neck, then hovers over her lips. Roxy glares at him. “She's alive! Stop checking!”

“But she might not be any minute,” he retorts. “Her passing out was so sudden, you don't think she couldn't die just as suddenly, after all the stress she put on her body?”

“Is there anything I could do?” Callie asks, wringing her hands.

“Yes,” Dave and Roxy reply in sync. Roxy steps back and Dave moves so that he is not hunched over Rose, blocking Callie's access to her. The troll girl crouches down and lays a hesitant hand over Rose's heart, then her head.

Jake stands to the side, watching the scene unfold. He's not sure whether to feel lucky or immensely guilty, but it's not as if he did anything to Rose other than hope she wouldn't rat him out to Roxy.

_Well,_ he thinks, watching Callie's face shift from curious to deeply worried,  _there's not much chance of her talking about anything now, is there?_

Ω

Rose passes in and out of consciousness for three days. When she's awake, the most she can do is blink blearily at everyone and take a few sips of water or eat a few bites of food. Eventually, even though Rose can't walk and must be carried, the decision is made to move on from their current campsite. They can't hang around forever, not with imperialists and bitter revolutionaries alike wandering the countryside in search of revenge, and so the party trades shifts alternately carrying Rose or sharing in the support of her with another person.

It's the middle of the day, two weeks since Jake and Callie joined Roxy's party. They've just narrowly avoided encountering a large group of strangers in a nearby gorge, navigating a wide berth around them by virtue of faith and the estimated location of the stangers by the sound of their voices, echoing like specters in the dark. Roxy's party is sitting in an area lush with vegetation that could make for good hiding places. They're trying to figure out if lighting a fire will give away their location when Rose, bundled up nearby, whispers, “I don't deserve this.”

Jake thinks she's referring to the strange sickness that has fallen over her, but then Roxy's approaching her mother with her pink eyes narrowed. “Mom, no.”

“You should...” She stops and coughs, hard. “Y-you should leave me to die...”

“ _Mom_.”

“I shouldn't be alive...”

Dave rushes over and gently touches her face. “Stop it, Rose. No matter what, we're not letting you go.”

“But you're not denying it,” she rasps, eyelids sinking with the effort to stay conscious. “You... you two agree I shouldn't... be redeemed...”

“Of course we...” But he stops mid-sentence when her eyes close and her breathing evens. He watches her sleeping face for a while, fingers ghosting over her cheeks.

“Of course we don't,” he whispers, even knowing she can't hear him.

Ω

“It's of magical origin,” Callie sighs. “I can't do anything for her. It's not just an organ to be put back together, or. Or sickness to be lifted from the body. She's obviously exerted a lot of physical energy recently, so unless she bounces back on her own...”

Roxy lets her trail off. They're sitting by the fire, their hands intertwined. Roxy tries to picture the rolling hills and rocky soil of Derse, to plot their course back to a country she'd never wanted to enter in the first place, but all she can see in her mind's eye is her mother growing gaunter and frailer by the day.

“You said, with a little rest, that I could get my magic back,” Roxy says.

Callie nods.

“But my mother – there's no chance of that, is there?”

Callie hesitates. She squeezes Roxy's hands reflexively, the need to comfort built into her by design. “With you, it was a matter of... of expending a lot in one very, very short time. But a summons is different from self-defense. I-it's almost like a contract with a demon. You're giving... you're giving your _self_ , in a way, so that something can come into the world. And it is indebted to you. But even as the ties between the summoner and the summoned are severed, the initial act is so... so physically exhausting. It's hard to survive something like that, let alone...”

Roxy shakes her head. “She's always been the best of the best. So I don't understand how she couldn't have _known_ that bringing that – _thing_ into being at the capital would be reckless.”

Callie's mouth turns up at the corners, but it's too sad to call a smile. “You'd think she'd know better, act better...”

“Hell no,” Roxy snorts. “I _know_ she knows better and I also _know_ that she's just as reckless as her son – where do you think Dirk got it from?” Roxy shakes her head. “She and my dad forsook safety in Prospit to fight a war they _thought_ might make their kids' lives happier and _knew_ might take their own lives. So there's no doubt in my mind that she knew better _and_ did the opposite anyway.” She sighs, rubs her aching temples. “I just wish I knew who gave her that fucking spell, so I could. So I could have someone to blame other than her, you know? But she won't tell me. She says it isn't worth it, it was just some confidant...”

Callie watches, curious, as Roxy pulls away from where they're leaning close together, suddenly rummaging in her pockets. “I know I saved... Ah. Here, look at this.” She pulls a crumpled piece of paper from an inner pocket. Callie takes it.

The page has grown sepia with age. The Old Language creeps and crawls over it in black ink, which makes the neat, white, impossibly still text over top of it all the more noticeable. It reads, _Godspeed, my friend._ And then next to it, there is a white circle.

Callie's blood runs cold. “What is this?”

“It's the spell my mom used to summon the horrorterror. I'm no expert on Magic history, but I'd say whatever book this is from, it's really fucking old and _probably_ illegal.”

“Or so long lost that no one thought to make laws against it,” Callie murmurs. She smooths her fingers over the white ink, and. She can feel it. It's familiar, and it sends icy, horrible fingers down her spine.

“You feel it, too?” Roxy asks, seeing her shiver. “Like, whoever this is, they're bad, right?”

“Very bad,” Callie whispers, biting her lip. “Like whoever gave this to your mother, they certainly have an agenda of their own.”

Ω

“Please, let me at least rub your temples.”

“Look, Callie, I can do that myself. Unless you've got some hardcore potion-making junk you haven't told any of us about, I don't think you can do anything for these headaches.”

Callie pouts. “I'm sorry I couldn't make them go away. I just want to help so badly!”

Roxy pats her on the shoulder. “And you can do that by not worrying yourself to death over them. I'm sure it's just like you said – my power's returning, and this is how it's manifesting itself. Hey, I even lit that smokeless fire last night! All thanks to the rest routine you prescribed me.”

_You walk far too many miles a day and then you collapse until it's your turn to do night watch,_ Jake thinks, sourly.  _If that's Callie's advice, then how's that any better than what you'd do on your own? How's that good for you at_ all?

Behind the young trio, Rose is unconscious, and the Mayor is literally carrying her on his back. Dave hovers nervously, muttering the unnecessary “Be careful!” and “You're still sick yourself, take it easy” whenever possible. But the Mayor seems to be doing just fine. He's a stocky little thing, all upper body muscle, and, with a pang, Jake is reminded of A.R. He banishes the thought before it can take root and flower guilt.

The party carries on towards the Derse-Prospit border, no one any wiser to Jake's intentions with Callie. He hasn't really talked to her since his fight with her in front of Rose. He's just watched her from a safe distance, making sure she doesn't tell Roxy anything he'd rather her not know.

Even as a kid, Roxy was a skilled markswoman. And now, as an adult – no. She's not even an adult. As a fifteen-going-on-sixteen year old, she's a veteran of battle. She knows all about using her fists and guns and any weapon she can wield to get out alive and on top, and. And Jake's just a guy who's been threatening a girl half his size and wandering around the countryside for a few months. He knows how to pitch a tent and find fresh water, but Roxy knows how to fight off people coming at her from all sides with weapons and a thirst for her blood. It's not the same. If Roxy found out what was going on between him and Callie, she could destroy him. Which is partially why he doesn't understand why the hell Callie hasn't ratted him out yet.

He has a feeling it has something to do with The Word. The one that springs onto his tongue when controlling her through fear and force is at its most difficult, the one that he can't ever remember afterwards.

The trees are starting to increase in height, girth, and number. This means they're getting closer to the border. Roxy grins as she tells them all the news, jabbing at the map she's unfolded to show them where they are, but it's hard to act chipper when one of their party can barely stay conscious for an hour at a time.

She's folding up the map, jabbering on about how great it'll be to be able to eat Jane's cooking and listen to Karkat's ranting again when something whistles past their heads. Roxy's arms are out immediately, slamming into Callie and Jake's chests and bringing them and the rest of the party to a halt. Roxy reaches for the empty gun hanging at her hilt, and Jake and Dave, following her lead, draw their own weapons, quickly moving so that Rose, Callie, and the Mayor are pushed to the center of the circle of their bodies.

They're standing in a valley, and up on the summits, from the thick foliage, strange carapaces emerge. Their clothes are smeared in a myriad of fading colors, and most of them carry bows and arrows, although there is one man with a spear – no wands, but then, that doesn't always mean much. “Get the knife,” Jake whispers to Callie from the corner of his mouth, and he feels her rustle in his back pocket for it, her whole body trembling. He's sure not to take his eyes off those carapaces walking towards him. Next to him, glaring at the other group, Roxy is tense, and he can only imagine how many people Dave is looking at. There must be, what. Ten, twelve people here?

A rather tall carapace man with a nasty scar over his lips bares his sharp teeth at Roxy. “Well, I'll be. It's the Girl Savior.”

A shorter man wielding what appears to be a sharpened stick starts to tremble with glee. “Oh, man – how much you think we can get if we capture her, huh? You ought to figure the feds will offer a fortune for her, right?”

The leader is eyeing Roxy severely, and Jake has to give her credit. She doesn't so much as flinch. She holds her stance, ready to pretend to shoot or, once her bluff is called, to run the man through with the bayonet of her rifle.

“No,” the Tall Man says, “let's cut out the middle man. We'll take her down ourselves and parade her like a dog on a chain. That's reward enough.”

Jake is forced to keep his eyes on those approaching him directly, but he can hear the cheeky grin in Roxy's voice as she says, “Sounds kinky and all, but I'm not really _feeling_ going anywhere or doing anything with you, not with an audience of this size.”

The Tall Man's lip curls. “You say it like you'll be alive for the proceedings.”

The approaching group looks to the Tall Man and then, at his signal, start to slink towards Roxy's party even faster. They are completely surrounded, and so Jake and Dave and Roxy back up more, pressing those they are trying to tighter between their backs, shielding them. If Jake wasn't so focussed on staying alive, he'd be wondering if this is where his journey ends, with a bang, maybe a few dying whimpers, and no resolution. He cocks his gun and is prepared to fire when the man in front of him is shot from behind. A look of shock passes over his face, and then he falls face forward onto the ground, and never moves again.

Twenty trolls explode from the summit on all sides, hooting and hollering, firing away at the carapaces. The Tall Man stumbles back from Roxy in shock, distracted enough that she is able to swipe her bayonet across his chest, tearing his shirt and knocking him off balance. While the horde of trolls scares the carapaces back, Roxy steps on the Tall Man's chest and sticks the point of her bayonet against his neck.

Jake, incredulous, raises his gun to a troll smeared in red paint who has just taken out a carapace three feet from his face, but when the troll sees his gun, they laugh, and say, “Put that thing down, man – we're here to save you!”

Jake doesn't lower the gun. The trolls shrugs. “Alright – you're cautious, I understand. Just don't shoot!” and bounces off after a carapace running, screaming, into the woods.

A solidly-built troll woman with horns shaped magnificently like a white-tailed deer's antlers steps up to Roxy. The horde of trolls has killed three and driven away the rest of the carapaces save for the Tall Man, who is staring up at the pair of women with wide, white eyes.

“You'd best move on,” the troll woman says. The carapace man looks nervously at Roxy, and then her bayonet. She hems and haws, but, after a minute, lifts the bayonet from his throat and her foot from his chest. He's on his feet and scrambling away in seconds.

Jake and Dave immediately back up into Callie, the Mayor, and Rose, eyes shifting nervously amongst the crowd of cheering, rowdy trolls. Horns and weapons clack in celebratory toasts, and not one of them worrying that their joyous noise will draw attention because the size and the ferocity of their party is sure to keep aggressors away.

The woman with the veritable antlers is tall and broad, and Roxy has to bend her neck back far to look at her when she asks, “Do I know you?”

“No,” the troll woman replies, “But I know you.”

“Most people do,” Roxy concedes.

The troll woman chuckles. “You are one of those responsible for freeing us from that awful witch.” The celebratory hoots are turned then on Roxy, trolls shaking their guns over their heads and smiling at her from all directions. Jake tightens his grip on his gun.

“I don't know how to repay you,” Roxy says. “I don't – I don't suppose there's anything I can do for you all?”

The troll woman's smile falters. “There is a way you can repay us. And that is by not asking us to accompany you on wherever your journey takes you.”

Roxy's smile falters. “I don't understand.”

“You destroyed the queen and her government. For that, we thank you. But you destroyed our city and left us homeless. We cannot forgive you for that, even if we vow to protect you.”

Roxy's expression turns grim. “Damn – I knew that was going to come bite me in the ass.” She shoots a look at Callie as if to illustrate her point, but the troll girl is too busy looking upon their saviors with awe. So many varieties of horns! She mentally runs through her knowledge of castes, wondering how many of the warmbloods are represented here.

The troll woman bows her head carefully, as a person aware of the fact she has massive antlers might. “I wish you luck on your journey.”

“And you on yours.” Roxy shakes hands with the woman, grinning despite herself. “Maybe in the future, if I have an actual plan, you and your people would care to join me again.”

The woman smiles back. “Perhaps. You would need quite a plan for that.”

They watch as the woman raises a well-muscled arm into the air. Immediately, the rowdy group falls dead silent. She waves towards the trees, and, in a level of organization that is almost comical when juxtaposed with their earlier chaos, the troll horde files behind their leader back into the trees, their footsteps inaudible, their heads low enough that their horns don't stand out in the shadow of the leaves.

Ω

If only they'd left some food behind. Surely they owed Roxy something a _little_ more than spur of the moment protection.

A day after their lives are threatened and then saved by strangers, Roxy hands Jake a small, pocket-sized sack and says, “I've been saving this for a while. We're getting close to a town, and I want you to spend it all.”

She tells him what to spend it all on, of course. And she suggests he take Callie and the Mayor along, to help carry things and to keep an eye out for each other. The Striders themselves can't get anywhere near towns – etchings of their faces have been slapped on the walls of every town hall in this country for years. “We'll stay out here. We can protect ourselves. You guys can make the trip in a day's time, no trouble; when you're done, you can return to this site and we'll continue on our way together.”

The money is heavy in Jake's hand, and her words buzz like flies in his head, making the entire world beyond them difficult to process. When he and Callie and the Mayor set out, it is in silence. Callie doesn't want to talk to him, and, of course, the Mayor simply can't. Occasionally, he will reach for the bandages he has wrapped around his hands and scrawl out a message to them both, something short, and it occurs vaguely to Jake that they should get him some real stationary soon.

Jake feels like he's walking through water, his feet unsteady, his vision swimming, and when they finally reach civilization, this is hardly alleviated. The Mayor is close to forty years old, and although he's not a weakling, Jake realizes he could easily kill him and run off with Callie.

Or not even. When they reach the market, the Mayor takes out the list Roxy wrote for them and carefully, carefully, tears the list across the middle. He holds out his hands, and, after a few grabby motions, Jake gets the hint to give him the share of money necessary to purchase those items. He seems to wink at them before he slips off into the crowd.

Callie sighs. “Nice man, but he's deluded enough to think that you're the one I'm romantically involved with.”

“Just like his best friend, Dave,” Jake mutters, trying to ignore the sting, the implication of Callie's words. “He cornered me when we first joined up. Asked if I was forsaking Dirk with you.”

“You are,” Callie replies. “He'd never approve of you kidnapping a girl, much less to save his life.”

He grabs her arm and she staunchly cranes her neck when he tries to shove his face into hers, to make his snarl all the more potent. “Now _listen here-_ _ **”**_

“You're not going to beat me in public,” she hisses back. A few people walk by, and, while they clearly cannot hear her over the din, they cast suspicious squints at Jake's hand squeezing her arm. “These are small towns, but they aren't barbaric.”

“It's _Derse,_ of course they're barbaric.” He yanks her into the shade of a cart, its owner sparing them a glance before quickly looking away. “Do you see? People don't like to get involved. It's not their business to get involved, they think.”

Callie's eyes flit nervously to the cart owner, who is doing his best to ignore her. “O-okay, I'm sorry, Jake. Let's just get back to shopping...”

Jake gives her a warning squeeze. “I don't think so,” he says. “I think we've hung around these people long enough. You and I have a perfect chance here to return to our original course.”

Her lips tremble. She'll either beg for her life or berate him for his stubbornness. He waits patiently to see which it'll be this time – right now, he's banking on her begging. She looks about ready to cry.

Callie speaks in a hushed voice. “You know, if you wanted to tell anyone about this situation, I think Roxy would understand.”

Jake opens his mouth. Then closes it. That was not what he was expecting her to say. Callie takes advantage of his bewilderment to talk on.

“You meet somebody powerful, who tells you you must do this terrible, terrible thing, or else somebody you love dies. So you do what you think is right. You're grieving. You make a rash decision. I think she'd-”

“She'd hate me,” Jake replies. “She'd hate me and she'd defend you with her life.”

“She'd understand where you're coming from, and she could help us-”

“How?!” Jake snaps. “By defeating the big, bad, all-powerful monster? She's just a kid,” Jake says, even as he realizes she's grown far more than he has. “She's a kid and without her army, she's powerless.”

“I'm not saying we pit her against my brother, I'm _saying_ that if anyone understands loss, if anyone is willing to give you access to redemption-”

“She's not going to save you!” Jake shouts. “Just because you love her _doesn't mean she's capable of saving you!”_

There's a tap on his shoulder. Jake, still breathing hard through his teeth, turns around to see the Mayor standing there. The little carapace man's eyes are soft, the grip of his hand on Jake's shoulder gentle. Callie's breathing is loud. Jake, as always, is aware of the pistol in his pocket, as if it is one of his limbs. His fingers itch for it. The Mayor's eyes are soft.

After a minute, Jake loosens his grip on Callie's arm. She quickly pulls it away, cradling it protectively. He has a feeling it'll bruise. He wonders what Roxy's going to ask her about it if she sees it, but then Callie's rubbing the spot, and there's a tiny glow of white, and. It's probably gone, he realizes. Even when she has sleeves, she takes these extra cautions to protect him. To hide what he really is. He doesn't even have to threaten her to do these things anymore, he has her so well trained.

After he money Jake could have stolen to whisk them out of the country gone and the trio are back on the road, Callie has the nerve to bow her head and whisper, “Thank you.” Jake feels immensely angry when she says it, but he doesn't know why. He ducks his head and just keeps on walking, her eyes boring tender, grateful holes into his neck.

When they return to camp, Jake shoves one of the bags of provisions into Roxy's hands and she smiles at him with an affection he doesn't deserve. Her blind trust that he's the same old Jake English is no longer liberating, but draining. He can't return her joy. He can't even fake it.

Ω

Even as his daughter and Callie grow noticeably closer, Dave has trouble looking Jake in the eye. At this point, it may be more out of embarrassment than resentment, but Jake doesn't bother finding out which it is. The number of people who desire to talk to him and with whom he in return desires to talk to is rapidly dwindling, and so Jake leaves Dave to busy himself with his (most likely dying) wife. Once or twice, Jake offers to carry Rose, to shoulder the majority of the burden when Dave sweats and his leg seems to be an especially bad strain on him, but these requests are met with a lot of snapping and scowling. To be fair, Dave resents anyone who tries to help him, and although he doesn't ever get irritable with her (nor does anyone), it's plain by the twist of his lips what he thinks when Callie offers to work with his leg, to make his burden easier to bear. That was the key to her initial failure, Roxy tells Jake – she called it a burden. She acknowledged Dave was struggling. Callie probably could've gotten him to work with her on healing himself much, much sooner if she hadn't done that.

He does eventually let her look at his leg, though. And in a matter of days, when hours worth of walking doesn't make him grind his teeth down to nothing, when he's able to sleep at night through the pain without relying on extreme exhaustion to knock him out, he ducks his head and mutters a humble thank you to her. Its an old injury, a deep tissue injury, and so Callie can't make it disappear entirely. But the amount of his pain she is able to alleviate is enough to put a spring in his step and remove the bitterness from his attempts at humor. His mood is good enough now that, when Jake asks if he can help with Rose, Dave lets him.

Rose is spending more and more time unconscious, and Callie quickens the pace at which they travel by worrying about brain damage and malnourishment aloud, wringing her hands as she does so. When Rose is conscious, the party stops and feeds her immediately.

Jake awakens in the middle of the night, once, and emerges from his tent to see Dave crouched down with her, insisting she eat while she feebly pushes it away.

“Why must you always try to shoulder the entire burden?” he whispers. There isn't any bewilderment in his voice but a sadness, a sort of resign.

She turns her face towards the fire. “I deserve to be dragged through the streets.”

“You didn't know what you were do-”

“I _knew,_ ” she snaps, “ _what I was doing._ I _should have_ realizedthe consequences. But I took a gamble with lives that weren't mine, and I deserve to be punished for it.”

“Rose...” There's a feminine whimper, a sniffle, and Jake realizes that she's crying.

“I should've forced our family to flee Derse the moment Dirk killed that agent. I'm a _Seer_ , I never should have let us take this path. I was selfish. I was selfish, and nothing that came of it was worth it.” Dave hushes her, but she carries on. “Our son is dead and our nation is in ruins. What is left for us in this terrible world?”

Her breathing is labored. Saying that must have taken a lot out of her.

Dave lays a hand on her face. “We have Roxy. We have friends, waiting for us in Prospit. And we have each other.”

Jake decides that whatever he needs can wait until morning, and quietly backs into his tent.

Ω

Without once mentioning the subject, the party collectively agrees to avoid the woods. They have finally reached the border, and as a result, the trees rise up like specters, their crowding creating an ominous darkness the deeper one ventures amongst them. The party decides to risk skirting the edges of the woods, more afraid of what lurks amongst the green.

The further north they go, the trees start to thin, and voices rise up in the air. Roxy reluctantly dumps her rifle, knowing it's what will be asked of her, anyway, but Jake and Dave refuse to let go of any of their weapons. Eventually, they reach a crowd of at least a hundred refugees, all ambling for a chance to prove to border control that they should be let across. There are officers from Prospit milling around here, assigning numbers and assuring everyone that it's safe here, but Jake keeps his hand in his pocket, gripped around the pistol.

It smells terrible. Like body odor and waste. They've grown immune to their own poorly-washed smell, but this newer, greater one hits them like a train the moment the trees fade to nothing.

From where they are, even at the edges of the makeshift settlement, they can see the wall. It'd be difficult, even with a bigger crowd and a thicker gathering of trees, not to. It's a hundred feet tall and an awful yellow color, as if the bricks are pure gold. They aren't, of course. But Prospit's government has always been one for the flashy presentation. Lucky for them, Derse, the country whose workers were forced to build the wall, were interested in the actual effectiveness of the structure as well.

It's a solid wall, surrounded, they all know, by trenches and barbed wire. _That_ you cannot see from where they are. But it's clear by the atmosphere alone that no one crosses without the approval of the Prospitian guards.

Roxy and Dave pull their hoods and Rose's down far enough to obscure their faces. Rose is awake, but she's groggy. She can keep her feet under herself, but only because they've each got her by an arm.

“Jake, you're the one with citizenship,” Roxy says. “When our number is called, I'm going to need you to represent us. We haven't any money left, and even if we did, we never had enough to bribe these people. So you need to convince them to let us in on your right as a Prospitian alone, and you can't let them find out who the rest of us are.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” he asks, wary.

“Use your connections,” Dave suggests. “John still works with the crown, right? Promisethe guards compensation for letting us in without extensive security checks.”

“We've got a sick woman with us,” Roxy says. “Make it urgent. You can distract them, and we'll slip past.”

They are forced with the hundred others to camp out for a few days. The entire time, the Striders are sure to keep their faces obscured. Jake hopes, no matter how accurate any etchings out there may be, that starvation, dirt, and lack of makeup have rendered the Striders unrecognizable by them.

He knows his country. Prospit loves rules and regulations just as much as Derse is renowned for overlooking them. Jake is sure it will be harder to get in than Roxy is making it seem. It was hard half a year ago just to convince them, with papers and all sorts of credentials, to let him get out. He can't begin to imagine the process to get back in.. This time, he doesn't even have his papers.

When the party is finally called to have their case reviewed, the Striders hang around in the back of the group, and Callie and the Mayor make a point of standing in their way. They hand over their bags for inspection, and when the guard pulls out the knife, he clucks his tongue.

Jake smiles cheekily. “For hunting. We've been living off the land, you see.” He watches the guard start to put it in a pile with other “contraband.” “Um, excuse me, sir, but weapons aren't illegal for citizens of Prospit.”

“Right,” the guard replies, looking tired. “And you're visitors, not citizens.”

“Actually,” Jake says, straightening his posture, “ _I_ happen to be a Prospitian citizen, born and bred. My mother delivered me in the hospital in Lofaf. We lived there for years! She's further east now, though. You can tell by my accent that we spent most of our time in and around the capital.”

The second guard sighs. “Good, good, whatever. Show us your papers, please.”

Jake's grin falters. “Er. See, that's the thing, chap, I. I haven't got my papers, I-I lost them – but I'm sure if you wrote my uncle, he'd get my proof of citizenship here no problem! He was almost elected senator last year, you see. John Egbert's his name! People say we look just alike.”

Jake makes a desperate effort to use the same awkward politician's smile he'd seen his uncle flash on every adult, child, and puppy in his vicinity. As the guards squint at his face, Jake can't help but wonder if it's the awful front teeth that lost John the favor of his superiors.

More than likely, it was the fact he's a human of color. The white men glaring him down now shrug. “No papers, no immediate entry. You'll have to wait for approval like everyone else.” One guard waves to the others. “Pat them down.”

“N-no, that won't be necessary,” Jake says, quickly. “We haven't anything dangerous.”

“ _Nothing_ dangerous?” The man waves the knife in his face. “Look – there are terrorists out there, and we need to take precautions that they don't get into our country. Tell those three at the back they'll have to take off their hoods.”

“B-but it's religious garb!” Jake sputters. “We've got a sick woman with us, you can't just go groping a sick woman!” It is obvious by just how many guards are around that distracting these men so the Striders can sneak past into the very locked gate in the wall is not an option. As the guards advance, Jake's fingers itch for his gun.

“Please, sir.” The guards stop. Callie walks up to the first guard with her hands folded in front of her and her large, black eyes shining. “My friends don't like to remove their hoods. They were horribly injured in the disaster at the capital, and though they survived, the scars they sustained...” She pauses for dramatic effect, eyelashes fluttering as if to ward off tears. “They're very self-conscious, sir. Please, let them have their privacy.”

The guard hesitates. “Policy says...”

Her lower lip trembles. “They're harmless, sir, I promise. Please, think of yourself. You wouldn't want people gawking at your face if it'd been awfully wounded, would you?”

The guard tries to keep his emotions hidden, but it's apparent from the way his eyes swivel desperately amongst the group that he is in turmoil. “...I suppose they can keep their hoods on.”

Callie gives him a gentle smile. “Oh, bless you, really. They're in very much pain, and if we could just get them to a proper facility, like the sort you have in Prospit...”

The Mayor smiles then, open mouthed, and one of the guards actually curses when he sees the space where his tongue used to be. “Holy shit.”

Callie rests her hand on Jake's shoulder. “Our friend Jake English was _so very generous_ to offer to let us come in as his guests. He knows his country can offer our friends the treatment they need to get over these awful injuries they've borne for weeks now...”

The first guard chews his lip. He waves the others over and they stand off to the side, whispering.

Ten minutes is all it takes. A guard points at Jake. “You. You said you can prove you're a citizen?”

“Oh, yes. Not right now, but eventually...”

The guard sighs. Then, “Fine. You and your party are cleared to go as soon as we check you for contraband.”

“E-everything here belongs to Jake,” Callie says quickly, as the guards close in to pat them down. “The rest of us lost everything in the siege. Everything here was purchased by Jake, so it belongs to a Prospitian.”

The guards patting the party down looks to the first guard. After some hesitation, he waves them away. “Fine. Fine, no pat-downs, but you all better get yourselves to a hospital and mail in your papers to border patrol as soon as possible.”

“Oh we _will,”_ Callie says.

“And I'm keeping this knife.”

“Of course you are,” Jake mutters, and Callie jabs him viciously in the ribs. “P-perfectly understandable,” he amends.

“Thank you _ever_ so much,” Callie gushes. She shakes almost everyone's hands, fluttering her eyelashes and carrying on about how good-hearted these men are before they finally get through the gate. It clangs shut behind them, a wrought-iron menace situated in an arc cut out of the wall. Jake doesn't know how Callie manages to keep on grinning at the last few guards they pass as they follow the paved road into Prospit. Her face should be about ready to fall off from all the phony smiles she's been giving.

The minute they enter the country, the difference between ecosystems is made apparent. Jake already feels as though he can breathe easier. Above, the smog fades away to reveal a bright blue sky, and on all sides, the trees are absolutely massive, thick, and impossible to ever scale. They break only where the road has been cleared.

When the guards are out of earshot, Jake leans in to Callie ear and whispers, “So what kind of charm did you use, hm? Pure flirtation like you did with the innkeeper, or actual magic?”

She pulls away from him to glare. “Are you _joking?_ ”

He shrugs, facing the yellow brick road before them. The light catches in the crack in his lens, and for the first time in ages, he's hyperaware of the sight of it. “I think it's good you saved us. I was just curious...”

“Those men helped us out of the goodness of their hearts!” she snaps.

He rolls his eyes. “Please.”

“Not everyone in the world is bad and selfish!”

“Thank god for that!” Jake nearly jumps as Roxy comes up behind them. Her hands on each of their shoulders, she gently guides them apart and places herself between them. “Hell, it was hardly lying. We really do got a sick woman with us.”

“But it _was_ still deceit,” Jake says, looking Callie in the eye. “Is the act of benevolence made lesser when it's given to the unworthy?” Callie glares back at him.

“Doesn't matter,” Roxy says. She wraps an arm around each of their shoulders and holds them close, but they lean away, as if repulsed at her attempt to bring them closer together. “Because we're worthy.”

Ω

Jake, being the “Prospit boy,” as Roxy calls him, is given the honorary role of navigator. Callie offers to show them where to go, but he claims his explorations with his mother have given him near perfect knowledge of the country, and Roxy assures Callie that she trusts him to get them to the city.

Her faith in him wavers when he first suggests they stray from the main road, but he manages to convince her to see his way. “You know how insidious our country is. We will smile at you, shake your hand, and then, as soon as you're relaxed, throw a hood over your head and drag you off to die quietly in some holding cell. For all we know, there will be people waiting for us down the road, but even if there aren't, we don't need the stress of hiding our identities from the sheer volume of traffic that comes along this road. We'll travel through the woods and stop in a little town a ways up here, and we'll catch the train or procure lodgings until I can write my mother.”

Roxy scrunches up her nose, following the path he points out on the continental map. “You want us to head towards the water? Won't that take longer?”

He shrugs. “I promise you, it's the easiest, safest way into the capital by virtue of the fact that we won't we inspected along the way.”

“But it's still a longer path,” Roxy points out. “It'll take us _days_ to get to the capital.”

“Great,” Dave mutters. “More camping.”

“It would take us days anyway,” Jake sighs. “The capital is _very_ far from the border, and the first city we'd hit following the main road would be just as heavily policed as the capital, anyway. This way, we can avoid all that drama and spend some time in a more peaceable place.”

In the end, Jake wins out. The deeper they get into the trees, the quieter and more anxious Callie gets, as if she can sense that, wherever they're going, it's bad because Jake is leading them there. By nightfall, the party sets up camp in a nice, dark plot of woods ten minutes walk from the ocean.

A significant stretch of ocean. Callie sleeps with her back to him, her shoulders tense, her breath labored. He can tell she doesn't know, exactly, when it will happen. The demon had told her she wouldn't be able to, that they cannot see one another clearly, ever. But she's a cocked and loaded gun with a hair trigger. She doesn't know when it will happen, but she's getting ready.

“Jake,” she whispers. “You didn't kidnap me, back in that marketplace, in Derse.”

“You're right,” he says, even as he thinks, no. I kidnapped you farther back than that, from a hospice out east.

“You... You like these people, don't you?” Callie whispers. “You want to stay with them?”

“Yes, Callie, I.” He swallows. “I just... It's hard, and I...”

She pulls herself up to sit. In the dark, he can just barely make out the yellows of her eyes. “We can stay with them, Jake. It's alright.”

“Are... you sure? After all I've done...”

“ _Yes._ Yes, Jake, of _course._ ” Her hands are on his and there are tears streaming down her face. “Oh, let's. Let's stay with these people forever. We'll meet up with your mother, a-and we'll make a life in Prospit. Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, Jake. Thank you. Thank you so much...”

It takes a while to settle her down, but promises that they'll talk in the morning, before anyone else wakes up, eventually soothe her to sleep. Eventually, the sounds in all the other tents fade into nothingness. The Mayor slips into the tent with Jake and Callie, and the Striders all drift into a deep sleep of their own. For the first time in months, if Jake left the tent, he could see every single star in the sky. He could see the constellation under which he was born.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the chapter title is inspired by lyrics from a janelle monae song, "sincerely jane," not the zombie show, lol. it's a reference to the refugees from derse's capital. with their homes and livelihoods and faith in the revolution destroyed, are they really living or just walking dead, now???


	9. The River Lethe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've had rough notes for this entire series since I was still writing I'll Have My Pound of Flesh Rare.
> 
> In earliest outlines of Delivering Persephone, this chapter was going to be the last. Thankfully for you all, there's still one more chapter to go.

Once upon a time, there was a girl in whose footsteps flowers bloomed. And she had a brother in whose they wilted.

They weren't a “boy” and a “girl” in our sense of the words, which, even then, aren't categories nearly as rigid as we perceive them to be. And we are calling them siblings because it is easiest to understand their relationship that way. They were born at the same time from the same cosmic event, and so, by virtue of having diverged into two different beings, they are siblings, more or less.

But if we're going to assign them categories based on the definition most precise, if not really the most accurate, it may be just as fitting to call them betrothed. Not in the legal, bound-by-love-and-the-state sense, but in a bound-by-traditions-older-than-time-and-space sense. In a bound-by-obligation-to-procreate sense.

“Procreate” is also a word whose definition we are using loosely. It'd be just as fitting to call it procreation as it would be to call it complete and utter destruction.

Ω

She awakens to a hand on her mouth and a scream lodged like a stone in her throat. He whispers The Word in her ear and she can't make a sound, not like she wants to, and though she tries to shove him away, he pulls her up and drags her out of the tent without stirring its other tenant from his slumber. She reaches out to the carapace man, and then the flap of the tent, and then the fire, and then darkness is swallowing them both whole as Jake drags her further from camp and deeper into the woods. Trees close around them, leaning in like a fish eye's view curling in and staring like a group who gossips but does not intervene, and she is dizzy, she is scared, she can hardly breathe, she bites his hand and candy red tastes not like candy but blood and he hits her so hard the stars in the sky reel and swirl.

Ω

Seconds, years, moments later the trees stop short of rocks and sand, frog croaks and mosquitoes buzzing, and she can see the water. It is wide and navy-black and impossibly still. Jake's hand is still over her mouth and she can taste his blood and hers, though she can't tell them apart, and she can feel it congealing on her nose, a hideous spectacle, and she wonders how hard he'll have to hit to crack her facade entirely and reveal the monster underneath the gray. It's cold and it's foggy and her tears keep coming in droves, so despite all the water she'll be dehydrated soon, and Jake comes to a stop. Watches the shoreline. Holds her close.

The water ripples, its surface refracting and pulsing with dark colors and shapes like in a dream, and through the fog, a boat emerges. It's a little vessel, covered in seaweed and barnacles, propelled only by the oars of its sole inhabitant, but it glides through the water effortlessly and then it stops. It is small enough to only fit a few people, and the man at with the oars is green, he's dressed in green, his eyes are big and they are green and soon Jake is dragging her towards this stranger, and for some reason, this time, when she sobs, the lump in her throat is dislodged and a lugubrious chorus bursts from her lungs.

Neither Jake nor the man in the dinghy are interested in her crying, and after Jake has nudged Calliope onto the boat with a pistol pressed into her lower back, after they've sat down, the rower shoves his oars against the rocky shore, dislodges the boat, and starts rowing them back into the fog.

The mist, as mist does, disappears the moment they touch it and gathers heavily in the places from which they leave. Callie watches the shore turn to a solid, drab gray nothing, watches everything but the stars far above and Jake and the rower's faces disappear and it's a miracle, it's magic that gives the rower knowledge of where to go in these blinding conditions.

Ω

They sit in that boat for hours, or maybe minutes. And then, suddenly, the fog breaks to reveal a new patch of land, and the dinghy collides with the sand and stops. Jake stands up and pokes Callie in the ribs with the pistol, and she starts to walk, him steering her by the arm. When they're out on the sand, she tries to twist, to look for the rower, but the fog closes in so quickly he's swallowed up.

As Jake leads her up the beach, the fog lessens so that she can see more of her surroundings at once. The line of sand breaks, turning into a rich, green grass, and further out, trees, less wide, less impossibly tall, more exotic in their twisting and flowering than the ones in the Prospitian forest start to curl around them. The leaves are spiky and wide, forming a near-ceiling over their heads, and thorny vines creep and crawl over every inch of the ground save for the beaten path upon which they walk.

The dark plays tricks on Callie – she swears the vines' pointed hands are reaching for her, that the trees are swiveling to watch her every move, every plant moving at the slowest possible pace so as to be written off as personal delusion. She's never been this afraid of plant-life before. She's never been this afraid of any lifeform before, whether it comes from soil or womb or elsewhere, all origins seeming, to her, equally as deserving of love and respect. But there is always an exception to the rule.

The further in Callie and Jake go, the more menacing the shade of this forest's green becomes. And then, over the horizon, rising above the treeline, is something else green. But it is not a thing that belongs to nature.

A mansion, with one especially tall tower looming over its western side, peeks out of the forest. She stares at it, feeling as though the light from its windows are the fiery eyes of a monster gazing into her very being. The closer they get to the mansion, the sparser the foliage gets, until they break free of the trees entirely. On all sides of the mansion, the vegetation leans away, as if demons from holy water, or a monster far fouler than any of them. The grass is a shriveled brown, growing drier and thinner the closer they get to the mansion's front steps.

The front door all but flies open, and they are invited by the devil into the depths of hell.

Ω

Hell is lukewarm.

Jake has read his fair share of adventure stories, has suspended his disbelief throughout a litany of ransoms and hostage negotiations, but now, even while he knows he should wait to get what he wants before he relinquishes the goods, he all but shoves Callie forward, makes her stumble, when the demon lurches his way into the main hall.

The ceiling is high, high enough to allow the monster more room than ever necessary, but not enough so as to dwarf him. He is tall, and, like his mansion, green. He has fiery eyes that flash all the colors of a nightmare, teeth big enough to crush Jake in one bite, claws big enough to destroy him with one swat, a torso wide enough to house a heart the size (and hardness) of a boulder... the works.

Jake looks the demon right in the eyes and says, “I heard Dirk is dead. That wasn't part of our bargain.” His voice is far from the tremulous, lilting mess it was in years before. It's hard. It's like a stranger's.

The demon makes a sound low in its throat. “Yet you came. All this way.” His voice is like the roar of a volcano and every silent urge that has ever demanded Jake give in to the rage constantly burning just beneath his fingertips and hurt, kill. The demon nods and lime-colored men in lime-colored suits come forward and grab Callie by the elbows. She tries to yank her arms free and the demon says, “Sister.”

“Brother,” she replies, in terser tones.

“It is good to see you again.”

She glares. “I'm so sure.”

Neither of them so much as glances in Jake's direction. He clears his throat, puffs his chest out, and scowls. “Ex _cuse_ me. I believe I was promised something for my efforts.”

The demon raises his head and and looks at him. “Yes. You were.”

Jake stares back. “Where is my reward?”

The demon is quiet, just staring at him with those terrible, flashing eyes. Then, slowly, he raises one gargantuan arm, and points behind Jake. The young man whirls around, but sees nothing, save for the front door of the mansion still hanging open. Jake turns back to the demon, mouth open, but silent, in askance.

“Out there,” the demon says, “in the yard. There's a piece of him missing. Feel free to take. From the corpse buried beside him. To compensate.”

Jake's mouth opens and closes, its movements so erratic, that for a moment, he thinks he's going to have a seizure. “A-are you joking?”

“No,” the demon says. Callie spares Jake a glance over her shoulder; how she finds it within her to look at someone who has destroyed her life with such pity is beyond him.

Jake staggers forward. “No – no, y-you have to help me. You have to bring him back, y-you're. You're an all-powerful being, are you really telling me you can't bring him back from the dead?!”

The demon's expression is unchanged. Although, given his face looks like a human skull with massive fangs that may as well be made of bone, Jake imagines it must be difficult to make any expression at all.

“No,” the demon says. “I'm sure I am capable of that. I just don't want to.”

Jake's mouth opens. Then it hangs there. Callie closes her eyes and looks away.

“Do not look so upset,” the demon says. “You will get to see. Your precious Dirk. Sooner than you think.”

Jake is not the smartest man alive, but he can still pick out double-meanings, especially one so classically villainous.

“So that's it?” Jake asks, voice sounding to his own ears like a pitiful whine. “You got me to do your dirty work for you, and now what? You kill me? I'm so disposable?”

A rumble comes from the demon's chest, and Jake realizes, with a dawning horror, that this monster is laughing at him.

“You are disposable,” the demon agrees. “All of you are. Every human. Every troll. Even your Dirk. Although amusing. Was disposable. In the end.”

Jake feels as though the entire world is reeling and refracting like a dream around him. Soon he will wake up in his bed, and his mother will call him down to breakfast, and the light of the morning will be so yellow it's white and it hurts-

The demon and men in green suits and the captive Callie are all going away now, heading up those grand stairs in the center of the room, and Jake shouts, “ _ Wait! _ ”

Miraculously, the demon stops, and turns to look at Jake over his shoulder.

“Why me?!” Jake begs. His voice is hoarse and its sorrowful edge rings, tinny, throughout the room. “W-why me? Why send me, of all people, to retrieve her?!” The demon's expression is unchanged. Even Callie is eerily unmoved by his words. “Why couldn't you enslave somebody else? Why send me? Why torture me?”

The demon pauses. “It was your heart.”

Jake blinks. “W-what?”

“My sister only appears. To those who are true of heart.” There is a moment of gut-wrenching silence wherein the demon stares Jake down. But then it is broken by cruel, thunderous laughter.

Is he making fun of Jake? Is he being totally honest, and the endgame, the utter irony of Jake's transformation, is part of the joke? Jake looks at Callie for answers, but she closes her eyes, shakes her head.

Enraged, Jake lifts his hand and cocks the pistol, points it at the both of them. “ _It's not funny!_ ”

The demon laughs louder, the dimensions of the room making the sound horrific. Jake's hand trembles. “I mean it!” he shouts. He steadies his hand and aims purposefully. “I'll kill her! I'll kill her and  _neither_ of us will get what we want!”

The gun is warm in his fingers, tingling, white, and hot, hot, burning his skin so severely he almost drops it but his grip is so tight, never mind the searing, this white hot heat is a part of him now, flesh melted to the hilt and he's itching for the trigger when the demon cries, “ _LEAVE. US. NOW!_ ”

Jake drops his hand but not the pistol and he turns, on his heel. He's not going to get anything out of this bastard. It's all hopeless. He might as well just go back to the camp. He...

Swaying, sweating, head swimming, Jake staggers out of the door of the mansion and back out into the night, the gun rapidly cooling, the burn marks on his hand fading away to nothing.

Ω

“You've been running from me for so long. I've finally caught up with you.”

She shudders. “I don't want to do this.”

“It's not your choice. It never was.”

“No - you made sure of that, didn't you?”

“Do not blame me. For what was written in the stars.”

“Brother.” She says the word like a prayer. “This world is violent, it is unkind, but it is also beautiful. So many of these people deserve to live.”

“That is precisely what. Will make our duty. All the sweeter to me.”

“It is not our duty to be _cruel!_ ”

“But it _is_ our duty to destroy. It is our duty to create anew. You know that.”

“I'm not so sure anymore. We're the last of our kind. Surely this tradition can end with us, if we wish it to?”

“No. If we do as we were always meant to, there will be more of our kind again. It may not be right,” he says, silencing her before she can interrupt, “But. It is necessary.”

“But if we do this, there may not be any of them again. I don't think that's fair, that we're the only beings never to go extinct!”

“Do not speak of us. As you might any other species,” he snarls, breath coming heavier. “The existence of our kind. Is more important than any other.”

There is a beat of silence. Then, “Are we?”

“We hold the fate-”

“I've been thinking a lot lately,” she says, raising her voice. “About the worth of life. Does one life having a greater impact than another, does that. Does that really justify murder?”

She thinks he will reprimand her for interrupting him. Instead, he merely answers her question: “Yes.”

She scowls. “Does one's importance justify trading one life for another?”

“Yes.”

“People are not sums. We are not mere _values!_ ”

“ _We_ are more than mere people.” Again, she expects him to roar, to beat his chest, to posture. Instead, he pauses. And then, “This world has made you soft.”

She's disgusted. She laughs. “And I suppose it's made you hard.”

“We are two of the same. We are in simultaneous opposition and harmony. Where you grow. I decay. We complete each other. We live for each other.” He reaches out his claw to her. “We die for each other.”

She can feel him. For the first time in millennia, she can feel him, his power, his existence, so close and so familiar, it almost feels like reuniting with a part of herself that has long been lost.

His is far greater than the power of any being she's ever encountered. It is a perfect match for hers. He is a perfect match for her. They were _made_ for each other.

She takes in the whole of him, a bastardized version of the first form they were given. For something so ancient, he looks like a spoiled little boy's fantasy projected clumsily onto a living canvas. He's missing a leg, and she wonders, idly, when that happened.

They're very similar, she realizes, what with her horns sawed down to match, her own silly wishes wrapped around her true face like a protective blanket.

“I am all you will ever have,” he snarls. “I am all who will ever hate you. I am all who will ever be able to accept your love. I am all who will ever fit you.”

“Stop it.”

“No one can stand beside the eternal. But the eternal.”

“You needn't be so _petty._ ”

“Every friend you have ever made. Will someday leave you.”

She's a being as old as time and still, the thought of being abandoned makes tears spring to her eyes. She tries to beat them back by sheer force of will. “We don't have to do this now. There's time _left_.”

“And if you wait long enough. It will rot of its own accord. You will be alone. And it will only be you. And. _Me._ ” The space between them seems to be diminishing even as they stand perfectly still. 

She wants to fight for this world. But she knows that even if she gets away now, he'll find her. He'll follow her to the ends of the world just as he always has, and. And after so many hundreds of trillions of years, she's tired. She's so. So. Tired.

He looms over her, the beast to a wolf in a beauty's guise. She wants to see Roxy again, she wants to apologize to every living being she's ever encountered, but instead. Instead she takes the hand proffered her, because he has convinced her. It is all she has ever had to hold onto. It is all she will ever have.

“Caliborn,” she whispers.

“Calliope,” he says back.

And the cosmos open.

Ω

He hadn't even gotten to touch the plot of earth where Dirk's body was buried, but for some reason, he doesn't care. He doesn't think he'd get any closure looking at a bunch of dirt. He thinks it'd just make him sad.

The man rowing the boat doesn't talk to Jake, which is okay, because Jake doesn't want to talk. Dirk is dead and Callie's life has been destroyed and Jake is running away from all of it, or. He's letting the water take him from the scene of his downfall.

But maybe he doesn't have just one downfall. Maybe agreeing to trade some strange girl in to some strange monster was a bad choice in the first place. But what could he do? Turn the monster down? Mount some idiotic rescue? With what? Some crappy flintlock? Jake holds the rusted thing in his hands and thinks it couldn't even take down a deer, let alone some, some monster. Some dragon.

What was that from, again? Some story. He remembers his mother, or maybe Dirk, told it to him a long time ago. A hero kills a dragon and saves a princess. What was that story called? Was it even one story, or thousands, all identical, as if sharing some ancient root in some vast consciousness? Did humans think of it first, or trolls, or carapaces, or any of the men who walked on this planet before the water rose, the land split, and disease and famine and war descended in droves? Has the world always been so sick? So hungry? So angry?

The mist makes goosebumps rise up on his arms and Jake rubs them. He wants to go back to bed. He hasn't gotten even close to enough sleep lately, which should change, since they've left Derse. No refugees left to defend themselves from. He'll have to write John as soon as possible, send a nice present to the men working the border. He wonders how Jane is, and if she'll be relieved to see him home. He wonders why they ever let a boy come between them.

The dinghy drops Jake off on the shore and he stands, watching it disappear back into the fog. Jake stares out at the water, at the mist hanging like a groggy congregation of specters above it, and he thinks, _I've been out here all night, staring at the water like a goon._ When she was sad or confused, his mother used to like to sit out in the woods and just feel nature all around her. He supposes he's her son in that way. He should write her soon. Why has he put off writing her for so long?

In the darkness, frogs croak. Every once in a while, an owl hoots. Something buzzes past his ear, and he flicks it, lazily, away.

Having gotten his fill of nature for the night, Jake turns around and starts walking back to camp. For some reason, he wonders if Roxy will be sad. About what, though? He wracks his brains and decides he's worrying about her and Dirk's old Revolution again. Of course she's sad it failed, but after she gets nice and settled in Prospit, she'll pick up anew. She can hide peacefully as a civilian until the time comes it's safe to return to Derse again. Jake's sure his mother will be willing to take them in, even as fugitives, and keep the Striders' secret safe. She's a kind, trustworthy person like that. Jake's lucky to have her as his mother.

He thinks he can see the tent through the trees when the ground starts to tremble. Jake stops, looks around, his alarm growing as the trees start to groan, their leaves shaking and the birds departing in a chorus of caws and flapping wings creating a cacophony. A noise, like metal smashed together and ringing, reverberating, pierces his ears so viciously he grabs them and he feels blood on his hands, he squints, he turns around, and out, out in the direction of the water he sees a pillar of light, impossible, blinding white light, and it expands and it gobbles away at the trees air water life itself and grows and shines and grows

And then, there is nothing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes. One hell of a last image that would've been.


	10. Rewrite

For all things, there is an infinite number of endings. So long as you can See a path, you can swerve to avoid whatever is hurtling towards you. Or at the very least, you can make the attempt.

That's the glory of free will – things never just _are_. You have a say in the matter.

Ω

She awakens to a hand on her mouth and a scream lodged like a stone in her throat. He whispers The Word in her ear and she can't make a sound, not like she wants to, and though she tries to shove him away, he pulls her up and starts to drag her out of the tent.

But suddenly, blocking the entrance, is a tall, dark form, two fists clenched at its sides, pink eyes burning in the dark like coals bursting to life through the charred remains of an otherwise extinguished fire.

“Let her go,” Roxy snarls.

Jake fumbles in his coat pocket for his pistol, but before he can get a grip on it, Roxy has somehow stolen it away from him, despite standing standing several feet away, her hands at her sides...

Then he sees the corporeal darkness curled around the flintlock, sees the gun glide into her hands, and he understands. Disarmed, desperate, he lunges at her with a furious cry, only to be smacked over the head with his own pistol.

The Mayor sits up suddenly and looks around, wide, white eyes blinking, and Callie watches as Roxy forces the man who has terrorized her for months into a headlock, darkness seeming to roll off her in waves, and overwhelmed, tears start to pour down Callie's cheeks.

The Mayor has joined Roxy in subduing Jake, his face reddening and legs flailing as the two people try to lock up his limbs, but Roxy still manages to turn to Callie and ask, “What's wrong? Did he hurt you? Where did he hurt you?”

“No, no,” Callie sniffles. “I-I'm just, I'm so glad, I. I was scared for a second you wouldn't come!”

Ω

Jake is tied up and rather angry about it. Every once in a while he'll mutter some grievance, but with the rope in his mouth, it's difficult to understand what he's saying. Roxy wishes he'd just be quiet – it's not like he won't get his turn to talk.

Save for Jake, everyone is looking at Callie with wide eyes. Their mouths are unbound, but they are silent, struggling to reply to all that Callie has told them.

“He kidnapped you,” Roxy repeats. “Jake English. The kid who couldn't talk to a girl without squeaking like an untuned clarinet until he was _well_ into high school... kidnapped you.”

Callie lowers her eyes. “You don't believe me.”

“We believe you,” Rose assures her, nodding at where Jake is tied up. “We've personally seen how he treats you. It's just upsetting to learn that the son of a precious friend would ever do something so terrible.”

Roxy shakes her head. “You think you know a guy...”

Callie fidgets. “Do you believe... everything else I've told you? A-about the monster, and all he's done. I mean. Jake didn't do this to me without  _reason._ He thought he could help Dirk, and I know reasons aren't excuses, but. Do you believe me, when I say a, a real, actual monster, an ancient species the likes of which you've never seen, charged him with this task?”

That's the part that still has Roxy reeling. What Jake's doing is so unforgivable, but... he did it because he wanted to save Dirk from a horrible fate, one which he found himself responsible for.

And Roxy could certainly relate to that feeling of guilt. She'd been living with it herself for months, ever since she let Dirk go out alone that night. It had consumed her enough that she had allowed herself to be pressured into inheriting his title. And yes, Roxy eventually came around to his side of things, but only after joining his revolution out of obligation. Dirk never got to see what an impact he'd made on her.

She wonders if she'd do the same in Jake's situation. And she's confident she wouldn't, in the end, but... it's not as if the thought wouldn't cross her mind. But knowing Callie, seeing her in the flesh, the thought of ever hurting her in such a way seems impossible, and reignites Roxy's anger, her righteous disappointment in Jake.

Her father's voice brings her out of her thoughts.

“Stranger things have happened,” Dave points out, the Mayor nodding in agreement. “Maybe before my wife pulled a monster of her own out of thin air, I'd be skeptical of some ancient evil guy secretly manipulating the political climate of the continent, kidnapping Dirk and teaming up with the Condesce, but now. Now it seems almost like, like a reasonable explanation for Derse's over-the-top chaos.” He pauses. “Or maybe that's just me?”

The Mayor shrugs.

Something occurs to Roxy. She clears her throat. “Speaking of ancient and...  _incredibly_ illegal magical stuff... How do we know that this is really Jake's own doing? You said that this Lord English guy is powerful and ruthless. The Jake I know might be persuaded to give up a lot for his loved ones, but the fact that he went as far as you've said he has just seems completely out of character. Is it at all possible this Lord English guy is controlling Jake in some way?”

Rose brings a hand to her lips, the firelight making the occasional silvery strand in her hair stand out amongst the blond. “There'd need to be a marker of the contract,” she says, after a while. “To serve as proof he'd given consent to be bound to another's will, and to prevent him from revoking that consent.”

Callie gasps. “The white flintlock! Of course! He told me Lord English gave it to him, and he's been using it to threaten me this entire time!”

Her pleasure at having figured it out, although momentary, is so contagious that the Mayor actually claps for her. Faces filled with wonder, they all turn to Jake, as if the gun will pop out of his pocket and confess to its its crimes. Jake returns their stares with a wary expression.

“...Can't we just take it from him?” Dave asks, frowning. “If that's what's making him all evil, won't that break the spell, or whatever? There's a huge body of water nearby we could toss it into, he'd never get it back.”

“I'm not sure,” Rose murmurs. She rubs her lip as she thinks. “Contracts vary.”

“Well, can it hurt to _try_?”

“With magic? Oh, of course. Literally any innocuous action, if coded into the spell, can trigger catastrophic results. For all we know, throwing his pistol into the ocean could either send him flying in after it or kill him where he stands.”

“Well, that's. That's shitty,” Dave says.

“Indeed,” Rose agrees. “It'd be best if we avoid taking drastic action for now, at least until after we try to understand the spell better – which, if this weren't white magic, we could do easily. You can always decode a grimdark spell, feel your way through its encryptions and come up with the appropriate counter measures, but _white_ magic prevents that ease of interference by design.” She pauses. Then, “Not that understanding the formulations of Old Language is exactly easy.”

“But when you do understand them, you've got a fighting chance. We get it,” Dave huffs. “Guess we'll have to take a raincheck on un-evilling Jake for now.”

None of them say what they secretly fear: that perhaps the glowing, mysterious flintlock has nothing to do with Jake's behavior, and every action he has taken thus far has truly been his own. There are no reliable records in existence of magic being successfully used to control someone's mind. But then again, much has been lost to the ages.

The Striders, already immersed in planning-mode, are brought out of their thoughts by Callie's quavering voice, addressed to the ground. “There's no proof of anything I'm saying. There's no proof in all the world of Lord English's existence. So why do you guys believe me?”

Roxy kneels down next to Callie, touches the other girl's knee in comfort. “For the same reason I knew to save you. Because I Saw it.”

The other girl raises her sorrowful face to look upon Roxy with awe. “What do you mean, you Saw it? You, you mean you foresaw more than just Jake taking me away?”

“Bits and pieces,” Roxy says, shrugging. “I've actually been having them since I met you. I didn't realize they were visions at first – I thought they were just really weird dreams, until I had the one predicting... well. Him, dragging you off. And everything that can happen after.” Roxy gestures to the other members of their party, who are looking more and more confused by the second. “But they're not clued in, and I'm still missing a lot of details, so you should probably straighten the story out. You told us this Lord English was holding Dirk ransom, and is probably behind the Condesce's invasion of Derse. Now explain to us why this demon that sent Jake after you wants you so bad.”

Callie swallows. “It's... a really, really long story.”

Dave shrugs. “We've got time.”

“No, actually – that's partly why he wants me. We haven't.”

Ω

For all their genetic similarity, for all that they can trade places and fool even their own parents, for all that their world is consumed by one another, identical twins are rarely all that identical.

Calliope and Caliborn were born from the same cosmic event; it was an event in which an entire universe died, and an event from which another universe was born. Thus, the entity that would one day diverge into two nearly omnipotent siblings began in a place of catastrophic destruction and joyous creation, destined to one day initiate the same cosmic event. Life and death are, quite literally, their birth right.

The moment the two diverged, however, each decided that they identified more strongly with one aspect of this birth right than the other. Whether this is the result of their divergence or the reason for it is unsure, but regardless, Caliborn came to embody all that was destruction – death and decay, war and pestilence – and Calliope came to embody all that was creation – birth and growth, compassion and health.

But, for all their differences, the twins still came from one cosmic womb, and embodied aspects of one eternal process. Just as there can be no death without life, there can be no Caliborn without Calliope.

It should be said now that, while their memories of their lives are expansive, the twins have no memory of the entities that gave birth to them. Of course they don't. Such entities perished with the previous universe. The twins also have no idea of how they came by the knowledge of their many powers and abilities, nor of what they are, nor of what they are supposed to do. They simply knew, from the beginning, all that they could be capable of.

Just as there can be no death without life, there can be no Caliborn without Calliope. And, in according with such, despite the immense power of each, neither twin can ever kill or control the other. There were mechanisms put in place to protect them from one another: for one, there was an ancient, timeless magic, tied to their True Names. For another...

When Calliope finally fled Caliborn, it was as if a vacuum was left in her place: all who encountered her forgot, and no matter how thoroughly Caliborn searched, no matter how deeply he reached for her presence in the cosmos, he couldn't  _ feel _ her presence. If she didn't come willingly to him, he couldn't have her.

Which was where a deposed queen, an evil empress, and a young, bereaved man came into use.

Ω

Callie tells them that Lord English is, in the simplest terms, her brother. She tells them how old she and he are, how powerful, and how, despite that power, he can never use it to track her down. She tells them why her brother most likely kidnapped Dirk, as well as how far-reaching his influence has been on Derse and even Prospit in the last twenty years. She tells them that her and her brother's appearances have changed over time to fit their personal needs, as well as how their dwindling power now prevents them from performing such self-transmogrifications.

But Callie can't explain to them what her brother wants her for, what they have been slated since birth to do together. The words collapse on her tongue with every attempt to give them life. For all her visions to corroborate Callie's knowledge, even Roxy can't grasp this one thing.

The party watches Callie with growing concern as she becomes more and more frustrated by her inability to make them understand, until, finally, ashamed, she bursts into tears.

Roxy's hand on her back is warm and tender. “If we run away now...”

“He'll catch me _eventually_.”

“Why? How do you know that?”

“Because the world is literally _shrinking!_ ” Callie cries out, trying, still, to make them understand. “Because Derse and Prospit are all that's left!”

“No way.” Dave's frown goes so deep it wrinkles his brow. “There's still so much left to discover, if we could only sail...”

“No, there isn't,” Callie sobs. “This is _all_ that is left. Everywhere else has been ravaged and lost. They're wastelands, like Alternia. There's nothing beyond the ocean. When this continent dies, it is over.”

Rose gives Callie a puzzled look. “What's over? Do you mean to say life itself?”

Callie frantically nods, tries to grasp this conversation and tug it in the direction she needs, but she's interrupted.

“But even if this continent is the last one, there are still sea dwellers, and they can live without land,” Dave points out. “They can make their own underwater society, just like they've always said they've wanted. And even when the trolls are dead, there are all those animals living in the ocean – you can't tell me their lives won't go on just because they don't have, like, governments and poetry and math and whatever.”

“New creatures could always arise, no matter the conditions,” Rose says with a shrug. “A friend of mine studied biology in university. She told me once that life always finds one way or another to carry on, even when the environment seems to be in an all-out warfare against it. It's what drew her to biology in the first place – she found that resolve to survive inspiring.” She pauses. Then she turns to Jake. “That was your mother. She was never a reckless rebel like Dave and I, but she has always cared about things much bigger than herself.”

The discussion of life itself's hypothetical demise peters out, despite Callie's best attempts to keep it going. The thought of Jade has distracted them all.

After they've discussed the best course of action and Callie, resigned, has given permission, they decide to remove Jake's gag. Rose kneels down in front of him and, carefully, unties the rope.

The minute it's out, he snaps, “Why are you lot so quick to believe her? You don't know a thing about this girl. She's just told you she's a monster like her brother – who, may I remind you all, _took_ your only son from you, a-and.” He swallows, unwilling to finish that thought. “I don't know why you think anything she says can be trusted!”

Roxy huffs. “I told you, I had a  _ vision, _ Jake, I Saw what she was talking about!”

“She's omnipotent! She could've planted it in your brain!”

“Could not!”

“Could too!”

“Could not!”

“I'm not omnipotent,” Callie sighs. “Nothing could ever be omnipotent.”

“How do you know that unless you're omnipotent?” Jake retorts.

“Technically you're describing omniscience, which I also don't have. Some knowledge, as I said, I don't _know_ how I came by, but the rest was acquired through my billions of years of existence.”

“So you're saying you're _partially_ omniscient and _partially_ omnipotent.”

“That defeats the purpose of the omni,” Rose mutters.

“You don't know anything about magic, Jake,” Roxy sighs, while wondering to herself if it actually is impossible to create false visions. Her mother isn't supplying any knowledge to support or disprove this.

“My mother always told me magic, like science, was a field of discovery,” Jake sniffs. “People are always discovering new things they can do. So why can't a creature as powerful as her create false visions, or use some magical charisma to convince you all to see things her way?”

“For the same reason Lord English can't raise the dead,” Callie interjects, quietly. “Some things are just impossible.”

Jake falls silent. Then, “Not any of it sounds easy, but surely someone as old as time can raise the dead.”

“ _Nothing_ can raise the dead,” she repeats, growing cross. “Not my brother, not me, not anyone. There are no do-overs.”

What Callie doesn't tell him is that, for some very, very powerful Seers, it is  _ possible, _ although not probable, to  _ speak _ with the dead... Although, most people speculate these communications are more symbolic than anything. They're more than likely just dreams melding with true visions. No one, least of all Callie, knows how real these hauntings are. If it were in her power, she'd have had the deceased Dirk talk some sense into Jake ages ago, but alas...

Jake opens his mouth to retort, but then closes it again. Thinks. Then, his voice a slight bit less argumentative than before, he grumbles, “You still hide behind that false face of yours.”

“I've told you,” Callie replies, quieter now. “At this point, I can't change it. I'm too weak. You can't live as long as I have and keep the same amount of power forever.”

“Oh, that's bullocks and you-”

“It's not.”

There is a heavy silence. Everyone's posture is taught, as if they expect her proclamation to prove itself wrong at any second, and a great burst of power to come forth from her and smite Jake.

A few seconds later, when Jake is still alive and glaring at Callie, Roxy is the first to speak. “I don't quite get what you're trying to say your brother's going to do, Callie. But from what I understand, time is limited. Meaning we have a window of opportunity.” The group looks at her expectantly.

She meets their eyes. “We either run away... or we go to Lord English. And we fight him.”

Callie's mouth drops open. “F-fight him? Roxy, you don't understand! It's far too dangerous-”

“Of course it is,” Roxy interjects. “But you've got to face a little danger now and then if you're going to change anything.”

Rose shakes her head. “Roxy, we don't know anything about Lord English other than that he's ancient and far more powerful than any mortal magic user. We can't just face him head on.”

“But for how long will that work?” Roxy asks. She turns away from her father, to the ancient girl posing as a troll. “You said it yourself, Callie: he's going to come after you forever, and while I still don't understand why, it is _clearly_ something _you don't want!_ ” She grabs Callie by the shoulders, and looks her right in the eyes. “So? Let's make sure he can never lay a hand on you ever again! You said that your power has been steadily decreasing, that you can't even change your face anymore. So? He's probably weakening, too! And weakening means we have a chance to take him down once and for all! You don't even have to come. You can hide safely here and _we'll_ seek him out.”

Callie shuts her eyes and shakes her head, hard, as if to ward Roxy's attempts to persuade her off. “N-no. No, it's too risky. We can't. Even if he's weakening, you'll never stop him. Y-you don't know what you're up against!”

“Roxy, she's right. This is nuts,” Dave says. “You can't fight somebody that powerful without knowing anything about them. Why don't we just return to Jade like we planned, and keep Callie safe? We can get back-up and return here later, prepared, at least, for the worst.”

“Because we _don't know_ if he'll stay in one place!” Roxy gives a frustrated sigh. “My visions about him tonight are clear, but that doesn't mean they will be in the future! We have to do this _now_. We have to go to him before he comes to us.”

“But he _can't find_ Callie,” Dave reminds her. “She told us that for all his magic, he can't track her. We're safe!”

“He's only a few miles away,” Roxy says. “That's not what I call safe.”

The Mayor's eyes widen. Rose stiffens. “Wh-what?”

“He's just across the water,” Roxy says. “I Saw it.”

They look at Jake. “And you led _all_ of us here?” Rose asks, voice foreboding. “You lead our _entire family_ into danger?”

“No!” Jake wails. “I was just going to take _her,_ in the middle of the night! None of you would have been harmed! And in any case, I didn't have any idea where I was going when I agreed to lead!” At seeing everyone's unbelieving expressions, he hesitates. “I mean, while I do feel a rather large... urge, to go to the water, it's not like I've been leading us to any _specific_ place. That monster never told me explicitly where to meet him. He only told me that I'd figure it out, that...” He wilts under their stares. “Th-that I'd just know where to go, when the time came.”

So Lord English  _ is _ using the pistol to commune with Jake, and Jake doesn't know it. However, the extent of the demon's control over the young man's actions is still unclear. Rose continues to glare at him, eyes smoldering with the fury of a mother betrayed.

The morale of the group is steadily dropping off. Roxy's parents are ready to bolt, and Callie looks just about ready to cry. She keeps babbling about something, something ending, but it doesn't make much sense. Roxy realizes she's going to have to act soon, before she loses them, and this opportunity slips away.

It's vital that she confront Lord English – she can feel it. She doesn't know why, but she feels like a whole lot more than just the political climate of their small world is riding on this.

Roxy stands up and faces the group, sure to meet each person's eyes individually. “Look – the way I see it, we're being given an amazing opportunity here. We have a chance to take down a guy who has been terrorizing the continent  _ probably _ since it was born. If you all don't want to take the chance, that's fine, but I'm going to go find that monster and I'm going to stop him from terrorizing Callie or anyone else once and for all.”

“Killing him won't be like killing a horrorterror,” Rose whispers.

“Who says I'm going to kill him?” Roxy replies. “For all you know, I could find some other solution. Zap him into a vase for all eternity, like a genie. Turn him into a stone and throw him into the bottom of the ocean.”

“You can't _transmogrify_ -”

Suddenly, Callie stands up, tears drying in green-tinted lines down her face. “I'm coming with you, Roxy. I-I think he and I are too evenly matched for me to ever take him down alone, but – but for some reason, I feel like. Like together, we stand a chance.”

Roxy beams at her. “Thanks, babe.” Callie's hand jumps to her mouth, delighted by the nickname, but afraid to let herself smile in a situation so dire.

Roxy turns to the others. “Anyone else want to help me out?”

“Bringing Callie is dangerous,” Rose says, angry. “If English kills you, nothing will stop him from taking her!”

Roxy shrugs off the thought of her own mortality. “Who better to fight an ancient power than another ancient power? If she's comfortable coming, then she's coming.” She looks to Callie, who nods confidently.

Dave chews his lip. His gaze darts from his hands, to his wife, to his daughter.

Then, “Your mother doesn't have the strength to fight anymore. And I think it's time for me to acknowledge that I'm way past my prime, too. But...” He puts an arm around the Mayor for support and takes his weight off of his sword. He offers the hilt to Roxy. “I can stand by you in this way, at least.”

She takes the sword from him with reverence in her eyes. “Wow. Thank you, Dad.”

Jake looks bewildered at the whole exchange. “You're  _ fifteen. _ How in the blazes do you plan on winning this fight?”

Roxy scoffs at him. “I was fifteen when I led an army into Derse's capital, and there, I killed a horrorterror while a whole city was collapsing and fighting around me. I  _ think  _ I can handle a lone monster.”

But she looks nervous. “Maybe we  _ should _ collect reinforcements,” Callie whispers, unsure. And Roxy bites her lip, considering this.

“Roxy.” Rose takes her daughter's hands in hers, desperate for contact, desperate to make her daughter see things clearly. “You may have defeated a great power once before, but I _implore_ you to seek back-up. If this man has been running the continent from the shadows as Callie claims, he must be an immensely powerful person. You could be _killed,_ and I-” She swallows, eyes shining. “I only just got you back.”

Roxy is torn. Her grip on the sword is loose with her mother's hand covering hers, and she thinks, if she drops it now, it's over.

While she's mentally warring with herself over the right thing to do, the Mayor retrieves the stationary they bought for him ages ago. On it, he writes, in big, bold letters, _I WILL COME ALONG AND HELP IN ANY CAPACITY THAT I CAN._ As Roxy reads it, her face softens, and her courage returns.

“I've got all the reinforcements I need right here,” she says, decisive. Then, catching the anguish on Rose's face, “I know it's painful to see your daughter fight. But you've always let me and Dirk choose the paths we want, no matter how scary, and...” She grips her mom's left hand, hard, in her right. “You always said I was meant for something more, Mom. I think this is it.”

Rose searches her daughter's face. “Has your magic replenished? Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes, Mom. And yes. You told me that sometimes, when it comes to foreseeing a path, it's not a specific vision, but a feeling, and – I feel it, Mom. It's there. And it's the most important thing I'm ever going to do.”

Rose hesitates, her hands limp in her daughter's grip. But then they squeeze back. “Okay,” she says. “Okay.”

Rose reaches into her robes and, from an inner pocket, she produces her wand. She presses it into her daughter's left hand. “I-I love you, Roxy. And good luck, all of you.” She looks into her daughter's eyes. “Now go kill that bastard who took your brother from us.”

Ω

They take Jake along with his mouth free, his hands tied behind his back, and the Mayor's hand on his arm to guide him. The knife swings from the Mayor's hilt, for protective purposes.

They come to the water and wait. At one point, Roxy reaches down and loosens – but doesn't release – Callie's deathly grip on her shirt. She pats her hands, murmurs, “It'll be fine,” even when she realizes that, no matter the ultimate outcome, it probably won't be.

The water is as still as glass. Far behind them, the trees shuffle quietly in the night breeze. Frogs and crickets chirp back and forth. Roxy notes that her breathing has grown shallow, quiet, in anticipation.

A boat appears in the fog. “Will we all fit?” Jake asks. And, to their surprise, the little green man in control of the oars nods. The group trades cautious looks before they come forward and enter the boat, which, despite the lack of rope or a dock to tie it to, remains eerily rooted to the shore.

The boat barely shifts when they step inside. Roxy has her mother's wand tucked into her shirt and her father's sword at the ready to threaten the little green man, but he doesn't seem to want to argue, choosing instead to passively let the strangers board the boat. Which, despite looking as though it can only hold three people at once, accommodates all five of them comfortably. It's almost as if space itself has shifted just for them. Roxy feels as though she's left the realm to which she's used to for that of fairy tales. For all she knows, this little green man will whisk them away to some unforeseeable fairy kingdom and they'll never be heard from ever again.

She makes a note not to eat anything while they're away.

They sit in the fog for what could be hours or minutes or a lifetime. No one talks. The fog is so gray and featureless that the only indication that they are moving is the mechanical movements of the rower's arms and the almost imperceptible bob and dip of the boat in the water. Jake is glaring at his feet, the Mayor is looking around with his brow furrowed, and Callie keeps burying herself into Roxy's side, her lower lip caught between her teeth. Roxy tries to stay strong – to sit up straight, to keep on alert. But it's difficult. The ride is boring and she has no visibility. Not for the first time, she is terrified that she is walking them all into certain death.

When the boat finally hits a shoreline, it is without warning, and although the boat barely jerks, the sudden stop causes all five members to jump in surprise. The rower stares at them all, offering no explanation. The group of four step off the boat cautiously, and are surprised to find that, almost as soon as they touch down on the sand, the fog dissipates. Roxy eyes the barnacle-ravaged dinghy.

“Mayor, you and Jake stay here.” She points to the little green man sitting in the boat. “Make sure he doesn't leave, either. We need a way to get back when this is all over.”

The Mayor waves frantically, but he has left all means of communication behind at the camp. Roxy isn't sure what he's trying to say until Jake raises the same concern.

“Don't you think it's dangerous,” he asks, “going alone with Callie? It's foolish enough facing that Lord fellow with just the four of us.”

“You're still working for him,” Roxy sighs. “We can't trust you to come along or else you might screw things up. And we need to make sure that you and the boat stay put.”

“Then why bring me along at all?” Jake mutters.

“I thought I needed you to lead us, but...” Roxy looks into the distance, at the wild tangle of trees rising out of the thinning mist. “...I think we can find our way.” The memory of her vision shimmers in her mind's eye.

She links arms with Callie. Jake watches them with contempt, not once making a move to wrestle himself out of the Mayor's grip.

Roxy and Callie are heading for the line of trees when Jake calls out, “She's leading you into certain death, you know. I've told you before – she can't be trusted. Your visions may be real, but they're not telling you the whole story.”

“And you are?” Roxy asks, scowling. He doesn't shrivel under her gaze. He simply returns it, twice as stony. It's like having a staring match with a complete stranger.

_I hope that pistol's responsible for how you're acting,_ she thinks.  _One of the first things I'm forcing that demon bastard to do, when I get him where I want him, is free you._

Ω

The forest reminds Roxy of the abandoned garden in the palace. Fat, sinister-looking leaves fan out above, hovering together to block as much of the sky as possible, the spiky ends of each leaf gobbling up the stars like fly traps eat fireflies.

The trees curve towards them, as if looking down on them. Callie tries not to cling to Roxy, but it's obvious from the jerky nature of her movements that she is frightened.

Roxy reaches out and takes Callie's hand in hers. “Hey – don't be scared. You're with me.” She winks, and to her relief, Callie perks up at least a little. She gives Roxy a small smile.

They walk on through the forest, every inch of the ground covered in thorny vines save for the path Roxy supposes they must follow. Despite the overgrown plant life, not much else seems to thrive here. Roxy hasn't heard a single cricket chirp or an owl hoot or anything. She can't even hear the water from here. There is only the rustle of trees and their feet crunching on fallen leaves. The silence is excruciating.

“Do you want my mother's wand?” Roxy whispers.

Callie hesitates. Then, “Keep it. I don't think I'll be of much use with it.”

“It's no problem,” Roxy whispers back. “I'm quite good with just my hands. Or are you, too?”

“In a way,” Callie replies. She goes quiet again. “...I'm not all that good. At offensive magic. I can't do it at all, actually.”

“What?” Roxy's not sure she heard that right. “I'm sure you're still better than the average mortal.”

“No, I – I can't use my magic to hurt people. Only to heal.”

Roxy is silent.

“I can't fight, Roxy.”

“No, no, I. I figured that out.” She pauses. “This information would have been helpful an hour ago.”

“I'm sorry. B-but I still believe in you, in us.”

Roxy lets out a long, slow breath. “...Thanks.”

Callie squeezes her hand, and, though with some reluctance, Roxy squeezes it back. She feels as though she shouldn't be too surprised. If Callie could fight, she would've gotten away from Jake by now... or, not. Violence and fear are not so easy to navigate. If Callie had fought, Jake might have only fought harder.

Roxy still doesn't know everything that went down between them. Someday, she thinks, maybe Callie will tell her.

Ω

The grass dies out. Rather than looming over them, the trees start to curl pitifully in on themselves. And, standing before them, 500 feet from the shriveling forest, is an obnoxiously green mansion. “Huh,” Roxy says. “Even though I've already Seen this, I was still expecting, like, a decrepit castle, or a cave.” Aside from the atrocious paintwork, the house seems well-maintained. It's luxurious, and also definitely not the classic monster's lair... but then again, this so-called monster is Callie's flesh and blood. People naturally desire comfort, stability, like that which can undoubtedly be found in the heated halls and silken sheets of a mansion.

But he's an evil person. A person who, like the Condesce, needs to be stopped. No matter the cost.

The front door of the mansion opens. Fingers laced, the two girls head inside.

Ω

It seems empty. Before them stretches a vacuous room with floors Roxy would call marble if not for the color. The ceiling is incredibly high and there are two tall doorways on either side of the room, leading, Roxy supposes, into the wings of the house, as she saw from outside. In the north of the room is a wide staircase, heading up to a second level. She can't see much but a hallway, and supposes the rooms must be off either side. Everything is a noxious shade of green: the walls, the floor, the staircase itself, and even the furniture she can see in the doorways to the other wings. She wonders if even petty objects like books and scissors and the kitchenware are the same shade.

It hurts to look at. It's only slightly better than the forest because they can at least see where they are, and don't have to navigate by the glow of a wand.

And then there are footsteps. Roxy tightens her grip on her sword and gets in the position where she's ready to use it. Callie stands behind her.

“Do we have a plan?” Callie asks, frantic.

“Yeah,” Roxy replies. “Zap, stab, and punch until nobody but us is left standing.”

“O-oh. I thought you were a tactician.”

“Nah. That's more Dirk's thing. Nobody ever understood his plans, anyway. Too complicated.”

Ten men, all green like the rower, pour into the room from both wings. Every single one of them is carrying a rifle – great. Awesome. Roxy just hopes she's faster than them.

The armed men do not fire on Roxy and Callie. Instead, they look up at the summit of the great staircase. Roxy and Callie follow their gazes, and see a gigantic form lurch from the darkness of the hall.

Lord English makes his way down the stairs, a cape like a king's billowing out behind him. In one massive claw, he wields a great, golden scepter topped with a jewel as frightful as his fiery eyes. With his face, the naked, emerald skull, and his muscles, bulging grotesquely, and the missing leg, with the prosthetic embossed in gold, and the ridiculous clothes that leave his ripped chest bare, Roxy is surprised to find that she is not afraid of him. He looks like the obnoxious sort of villain a little boy would design.

His voice is a raucous boom, befitting of his appearance. “You are not. Supposed to be here.”

She grins in reply. “I hope you don't mind, but my friend couldn't make it. He's a little tied up at the moment. I'm Roxy-”

“I know who you are.” He breathes, and the sound echoes sickeningly in the cavernous room.

Roxy smirks. “And I know who you are.”

He glares at her. Or at least, Roxy thinks he's glaring. His face is kind of eternally stuck in one scary dead expression.

“I don't suppose you're here. To relinquish my sister?”

“Naw,” Roxy replies, raising her right arm in a sort of half-shrug, the left still pointing the sword at his face. “I was thinking of keeping her for myself, actually.”

She flicks her right wrist, and that's when the floor is torn up from underneath the green men with the guns, knocking them all to their feet. The demon lets out an angry roar and comes hurtling down the stairs, just as Roxy swipes her hand out in front of her, sending them crumbling, the demon crashing down with them. She winces at the cacophony, and the way the mansion shakes with it, afraid of bringing the entire building down and trapping her and Callie inside before they've gotten Lord English for sure.

He rises from the rubble with a roar and an imperious slam of his scepter onto the ground, which lets out a bolt of white lightning that only misses Roxy when Callie throws herself in front of her, hands out, teeth gritted. The white magic scatters off in all directions, disappearing before it hits any surface, and Roxy looks at the other girl in awe. “You didn't tell me you were so good at _defense!_ ”

There's no time to revel in Callie's victory, however. English and his henchmen all find their bearing and rush the pair, forcing Callie to focus on blocking the green men's movements, trapping them behind a translucent wall of white magic while Roxy heads off the furious demon.

Using the sword as a medium for her magic power, Roxy stabs at the monster with smoking, grimdark rage, every missed blow pumping her veins full of fear and determination. Meanwhile, Callie uses her power to push the henchmen further and further back, into the wings' open doorways. She starts to sweat at the effort of keeping so many men immobilized at increasing, oppositional distances, but until Roxy's hands are freed up, no damage can be dealt to them.

Callie divides her attention between the two wings and starts to will all the debris and furniture she can manage to stack themselves up in the doorways, hoping to trap the green men, while still using her power to keep them paralyzed. She has divided her attention amongst so many tasks that she doesn't notice how close Roxy and her brother's vicious fight is getting to her, and, before she knows it, Lord English has gotten Callie between them.

Roxy stops herself before she can send her sword into Callie's head, unsure if she herself is capable of hurting Callie, while cognizant of the fact English cannot. Roxy jumps back a bit, tries to get the demon to pursue her, but he stays where he is and stretches out his arms,the light in the jewel of his scepter flashing more wild and bright each passing second. He aims, and Roxy has to throw herself to the ground to avoid the crash of colored fire, but at least the six Felt in the west wing are now trapped behind a wall of flame.

On the floor, her body aching, Roxy gives a hard cough, trying to dislodge smoke from her lungs. She staggers to her feet, covering her mouth as the fire grows, trying to will the smoke away with her sword. She can't see anything, just green and violet and red and yellow dancing off the clouds of smoke, and when she finally swipes a wall of gray away it is to see the demon lunging at her, his massive hands outstretched.

She jumps back, but her wariness of the flames keep her from moving enough to escape his claws, and they tear into her chest. She lets out a cry of pain that echoes throughout the room before trailing off, pitifully, into a sharp keen. She drops her sword and crumples onto the floor on her back, spreading her fingers over the wet ridges of her open skin. She marvels over how quickly her whole hand becomes soaked, the feeling of her skin, so papery, and her blood, so warm, the frayed edges of her shirt tickling her exposed –

She touches the wound and cries, softly, because it hurts worse than anything she's ever felt in her entire life. She hears a girl scream and she tries to get up but she can't, and suddenly the wall of heat, while far from vanquished, moves away from her vulnerable body. There is a march of footsteps coming from somewhere on the other side of the room.

Callie kneels down over her, face twisted with pain. Roxy is vaguely aware of the fact that Callie's hand is actually on her face, now, but the touch feels far away, as if a thousand layers are between Callie's fingers and her cheek.

In the background, Lord English cackles, and starts to gloat. Roxy catches “pathetic” and “all by my own, awesome might” and “inevitable downfall,” all the greatest classics of a long-winded villain's speech. But she can't put the pieces together, can't follow what it all means as she clutches her bleeding front. Callie's sobbing harder now, and she tries to put her hands over Roxy's heart but her brother snarls, “ _DON'T YOU DARE HEAL HER,_ ” and leans back in a bout of hysterical laughter when Callie flinches away from her, as if electrocuted. Anger flares up and forces Roxy's damaged heart to keep pumping. With a newfound determination, she squeezes her eyes shut.

The void. The glowing white strings of the Old Language. Everything in this world is tied together. Roxy follows the threads to a shining monstrosity and finds she cannot stand to look upon it. Lord English is not a clearly defined creature of letters and symbols weaved together in the harmony of life like the horror terror. He is a blindingly white inferno, too bright and too tangled to make any sense of the physics holding him together. He stands alone in the void as a beacon of pure and unadulterated white magic.

And then the light fades. Roxy wonders if he's growing weaker before she realizes, no – it's not him that's fading. The void is closing in. _She_ is dying.

She opens her eyes and tries to bring air into her lungs, but all she manages to do is gasp in smoke.

Above Roxy is a blur of green – the gloating demon, the green henchmen, four of them, she thinks, and then there's Callie, gray and orange and trembling like a mirage.

“You thought you'd _finally_ found your hero,” English mocks. “You thought you'd _finally_ found your way out. Lucky for me, sister. You have always been. A gullible. Naive-”

And then, amidst the thunderous echoes of his voice, amidst the crackle of the fire, amidst Callie's sobs, four gunshots ring out. And each of the four henchmen, previously preoccupied with keeping Callie from running, hit the floor in quick succession. Startled, Callie and her brother turn to look at who shot the four men dead. Roxy tries, laboriously, to lift her head up, to see who it is, but she needn't strain herself. She can read the name as Callie mouths it.

Ω

Jake English stands just inside the front door of the Felt mansion with his white pistol in his hand, his wrists very much free, and terror electrifying his every synapse.

“YOU!” Lord English gives a furious roar at him and the gun instantly becomes boiling hot.

Jake's flesh sears, almost to the point of bubbling, and he cries out in pain. But, even as he shakes, even as he struggles to keep his aim steady, he doesn't drop the gun. The demon snarls at him, as incoherent and wild as an animal while, at his feet, unbeknownst to him, his sister leans down, her hand on Roxy's blood-covered chest. She's whispering something into the blond girl's ear when the demon throws his hands into the air and raises the temperature of the gun another twenty degrees, the smell of Jake's own flesh making him nauseous, the bombardment of emotions and silent orders coming from the pistol's psychic connection to the demon giving him the worst migraine of his life.

Breathing through his teeth, sweat dripping down his brow, Jake points the gun at the demon who shares his name and fires a bullet right into his head.

The room actually shakes with the fury of Lord English's roar. A line of red trickles down his face, but he continues to stand tall and very much alive. All the shot has done is anger him.

“YOU PATHETIC LITTLE WORM,” English cries. “TO THINK THAT YOU. AN UNDESERVING WRETCH. WOULD EARN THE DEVOTION OF A WARRIOR. IS A FUCKING _JOKE.”_ He lurches forward, cape and arms making him seem like even more of a giant as he makes his approach, as menacing as possible. Jake, infuriatingly, stands his ground, a look of defiance on his face.

“I CHOSE THE WRONG SPECIES TO ELIMINATE FIRST. BUT NO MATTER. BEFORE I WIPE OUT YOUR PEOPLE. FIRST I WILL STRIP YOUR FLESH. FROM YOUR BONES. AND REVEL IN THE TASTE. OF YOUR DAMNED. HERO'S. HEART!”

But just as he lunges at Jake, the demon is hit from behind. A screaming twister composed of smoldering blackness and white light barrels into him, consuming him, splashing now in waves over his struggling, drowning form. Jake flinches back, his hands up to protect himself, but the alternating blinding darkness and light do not touch him.

The room is like an indoor thunderstorm of catastrophic proportions. Jake's vision alternates between black, white, and a momentary, clear shot of the demon, waving his arms wildly and crying out amidst the typhoon roar of the twin magics crashing over his massive form. Jake shouts for Callie and Roxy, tries to see them in the seizure-inducing display of light and dark and colored flames and smoke, still, swirling and growing with the whipping winds of magic, but there is no sight of the girls, and there is no reply. Jake's voice is swallowed up in the cacophony, anyway.

The waves swirl and crash and turn into a whirlpool, which grows, higher and higher, until, with an enormous crash, the reborn twister shoots up through the ceiling, causing plaster to come crashing down. Keeping his arms over his head, Jake bolts for the front door.

Jake tumbles outside onto the lawn of the Felt mansion, and then scrambles backwards, as safe a distance as he can manage. He cups his hands over his mouth and calls for his friends again, but winds whip past his face and the roar of the typhoon, now a twisting pillar of light and a darkness so deep it swallows the stars, shooting up from the mansion into the infinite reaches of the sky, it's so deafening now that Jake can only hope that his eardrums won't burst.

And then, all at once, the pillar of light and dark disappears. Jake can actually hear when he sucks in a breath at the sight.

All the lights in the mansion are dead. By the moon and the stars, the mansion looks less vibrantly green. Jake swears there is ivy growing on the panels where it wasn't before.

His legs are numb, but he forces himself towards the house. “Roxy?” he calls out. “ _Callie?_ ”

He stumbles towards the front porch, amazed at how the house still stands. Then, from the darkness, comes a soft, feminine voice. “Here!”

From the depths of the house emerges Callie. By her side, face droopy and tired, is a blood-spattered, but very much alive, Roxy. There is no sign of a wound on her chest.

She smiles wearily at Jake, one arm slung over Callie's shoulder for support. “Sup?”

Jake reaches out to them but winces, hand still clenched around his gun. It's no longer hot, but it still hurts worse than anything Jake's ever felt. His skin might me melded to the gun. He's afraid to let it go and find out.

“Here,” Callie says, offering her left hand. After some hesitation, he gives it to her.

In no time at all, the horrific burn is reduced to a smooth, slightly sore palm. Jake drops the gray, rusted pistol and stares at his hand, mouth open. “Golly...” He turns his hand over. “I don't have fingerprints anymore.”

“I'm sorry – that was the best I could do on short notice, and. I mean. I just expended a lot of energy.”

Jake shakes his head. “No, it's... It's fine. It's better than fine, it's – it's unprecedented.” He drops his hand to stare at her. “Why ever are you helping me?”

“'Cause she's a saint,” Roxy quips. Callie laughs, effortlessly, but all Jake can do is feel ashamed.

“I hurt you-”

“It was the monster, Jake,” Roxy sighs.

Jake shakes his head again, more frantically this time. “No – no, that's not an excuse. Just now, I-I shot him. He still had control over me, but I shot his men and I shot him, I! I've killed... I've _killed_...”

“You killed people who would've killed us,” Roxy insists, but Callie's expression is stony. She knows what Roxy does not, and watches, quietly, as Jake crumples to the ground in sobs.

“I... I killed someone,” Jake gasps. “And I hurt you, and I... I think if Dirk was alive, now, he wouldn't be able to look at me! I- _I'm_ a monster!”

“Jake, you bought us the time we needed. You saved our lives,” Roxy whispers, but she stops when Callie shakes her head.

“You're right, Jake,” Callie says. “You've done some wretched things to me. And we don't know for sure what happened to him, but regardless, what you did to A.R. was absolutely reprehensible. He took us into his home, and you let yourself be swayed into hurting him.”

Jake's palms are burrowed into his eyes, growing slick with tears. His whole body is shaking and he can't stop it. “I-I can never undo what I've done. I don't _deserve_ to be forgiven!”

Roxy wants to interject, but Callie has made it clear not to. The night air, just moments ago thrumming with the power of two incredible sorceresses, is now wracked with the sobs of a young man.

“Do you know why I've been kind to you this whole time?” Callie whispers. “Do you know why I've bandaged your wounds? Told you stories? Do you know why I told you that, deep down, I still thought you were capable of being a good person?”

Jake can't answer. He tries, but it comes out as incoherent babble.

Callie sighs. “I have been kind to you because, for all my age, for all my power, I was vulnerable to you. Immortality means nothing if your body can still sustain harm, and power means nothing if you cannot use it to fight back.

“If you had wanted to, at any point, you could have tortured me. And granted, you didn't do the worst, but you still did completely awful things. I feared for my future every moment I was with you, and kindness was the only way I could see placating you. And even then, your temper would flare at the drop of a hat. I had to walk on tiptoe. Eventually, I stopped trying to make nice and just kept silent in the hopes that if I gave you no fodder, you wouldn't hurt me, but to be honest, I knew it was useless. Even if you never again laid a hand on me, your main goal was still to return me to an abuser I have been running away from since the beginning of time.”

She watches him gasp for air so hard his shoulders rise and fall like a wave. His sorrow is so potent it could drown a lesser man, but he doesn't dare talk back to her, doesn't dare deny that all he has done is awful.

Callie sighs. “I will probably never forgive you for the danger you put me in. But that doesn't mean you can't ever be redeemed.”

He lifts his tear-streaked face to her, green eyes wide with awe behind his cracked glasses. “What?”

Callie shrugs. “My brother is the most influential bully I know. Prove to me he was behind your behavior by behaving like a better person.”

“I-” Jake chokes. He doesn't know. He doesn't know if being a better person can possibly prove that it wasn't him who pulled the trigger on A.R., that it wasn't him who chose to take Callie by violence rather than by deception. Who chose to take Callie, period.

“I don't know if all the charitable acts in the world can make up for what I did in Dirk's name.”

“I know a lot of retired revolutionaries who could say the same thing,” Roxy murmurs.

Jake runs his sleeves over his eyes, quiet for a while. And then he staggers to his feet. “We should get back to the Mayor. I, uh. I probably gave him quite a scare.”

“Oh my god, Jake. What did you do to get loose?” Roxy starts to move forward, but Callie keeps her back with a hand to her chest.

Jake winces. “I may have... Sprained his wrist. Getting the knife from him. But I swear that's all! I needed to get to you two!”

With a huff, the girls head for the forest. Jake chases after them.

Ω

He had gone because he had wanted to see if there was still time to stop Roxy, hand Callie over to Lord English, and collect his reward.

In the split second that the Mayor had turned to watch the man in the boat, Jake had made a grab for the knife and ended up having to throw his entire body weight against the other man to get it, his hands still tied behind his back. When he sawed the ropes on the knife and got his hands free, he'd bolted for the line of trees, not stopping once to see how badly he'd injured the other man.

He was rabid. He absolutely would have killed Roxy to get to Callie, except.

Except that when he finally arrived at the doorway of the mansion, and saw her dying there. One of his best friends in the world. His boyfriend's little sister. A girl who, like Dirk, meant so much to thousands and thousands of people. The last hope of the Dersites, dying, with a monster who shared Jake's name, the name he and his _mother_ shared, laughing over her prone body.

Jake hadn't given himself enough time to war with the urge to collect Callie and fulfill his contract. Instead, he had raised his pistol at the men with their backs to him and their rifles pointed at his childhood friend, and he fired.

Ω

The trees don't seem to loom like last time. Even the dying ones at the edges don't look as shriveled, almost as if the plant life has collectively relaxed. They still have to watch out for thorns on the forest floor, but for the most part, it's a far safer walk back than it was last time.

“So what was that, back there?” Jake asks. “All the lights and the great, twisting tower of terror, or whatnot.

“That,” Callie says, lips spreading into a brilliant smile, “was an apocalypse averted.”

A beat. Then, in unison, the two humans cry: “ _What?_ ”

Callie claps her hand over her mouth. The party comes to a halt in the middle of the forest.

Callie tentatively pulls her hand away from her lips. “Oh my god,” she whispers. “That was so easy to say...”

“Yeah, so why in the hell didn't you tell us _earlier?_ ” Roxy demands.

“Apocalypse?” Jake repeats. “We... You... You're joking. We can't... _Apocalypse..._ ”

“Calm down,” Callie says.  
“ _Calm down?_ You just told us we nearly avoided an apocalypse – you just told us that we had enough power to _stop_ an apocalypse! What? How?”

Callie hushes the two. “Let me explain.”

Ω

Callie and her brother belong to a species older than time called cherubs. They're a fascinating species who have evolved so that, in their early development, they have no need for a physical form. This anomalous start leads to some anomalous postpartum development involving the spark of a consciousness, its split, and the possibility of taking on, later in life, not only multiple personalities, but multiple forms.

Callie and her brother, so to speak, came from one so-called embryo, which split in two. But you already know this.

Callie and her brother were lucky enough to separate enough that, instead of being conjoined at the consciousness, or the head, or any other body part, they were two, separate beings. Which you also already knew.

What you didn't know is that most cherubs split into many different minds with many different personalities, and rarely, if ever, have bodies of their own. Most cherubs share a body with the kin with whom they share the same cosmic birth.

Or maybe you did know that, in some way. Perhaps it's best if we organize our information.

What you do know: names are incredibly important things. Just ask the parents who slaved over which of their multitudes of dead relatives to name their children after; the young girl who, after seven years as a Thomas, hears the name Clarice and thinks, yes, that's much better; the magician who specializes in binding magics, for which you _must_ have the name with which a person most intimately identifies to work; and yourself, and how you feel when people call you by the right name, the wrong one, when people forget yours or when you meet somebody with the same one as you.

What you may or may not know: speaking the name of a cherub in the presence of a shared form can determine which one you're talking to.

What you only just now are understanding: Calliope and Caliborn are not your average cherubs.

What you have probably deduced: this complicates things.

A cherub's true name is like a call they cannot obey. No matter the circumstances, it will pull that cherub from the depths of a shared brain to consciousness, quieting their siblings in the process.

For Calliope and Caliborn, there is no call to awaken, nor to sleep. There is only the call to obey.

Cherubs cannot directly use each other's names. For them to control one another would defeat their great purpose together – or. What many cherubs have thought is their great purpose together, like many humans, trolls, carapaces, and self-important members of the animal kingdom have before them.

To reproduce. Although, in cherubs' case, that word needs qualifiers. An asterisk, maybe. Quotation marks loaded with trepidation.

“Reproduction” for cherubs is an act in which the many consciousnesses that diverged from the same cosmic event relinquish their individuality to the familial hive mind, so that their power can be concentrated and put into the process of creating a new universe.

The thing is, newborns are terribly greedy and, in the case of newborn universes specifically, terribly big. And so the resulting birth utterly destroys the universe standing in its place, gobbling every star, insect, and civilization up into oblivion – including the proud parents who created it. It's a case of the young devouring the old, you might say.

Perhaps it was because, when he split from his sister, he took all of the worst qualities. But it only took one glance; one glance for Caliborn upon the universe into which he was born.

And from that moment, he couldn't wait to see it gone.

If cherubs were a race with access to their ancestors, Caliborn and Calliope might not have ended up the way they did. They might have thought that their separate bodies neutered them unlike any cherubs before them.

They aren't neutered, of course. Had Caliborn gotten his hands on his sister, he could have very well forced her to bear with him an entirely new world.

However. By developing separate bodies, cherubs _are_ getting more agency. They're evolving, although, perhaps for nothing.

As of Calliope and Caliborn, the cherub line has ended. Because Calliope – with a little help from her friends – decided that she wasn't the parenting (nor the world-destroying) type.

So in the end, it is Calliope without Caliborn. People aren't concepts, she decides. No matter what he's fed her for the past trillion years.

Ω

“But what happened to English?”

“To put it simply? Roxy and I combined our power to stop him.”

“But _where is he?_ ” Jake presses.

Roxy frowns. “It was all kind of a blur. But I think... I think he's just. Vaporized. Is the best way to put it.”

“ _Dead?_ ”

“I'm not sure,” Callie hums. “It felt more like... he was just particles. Not alive and not dead, but. No longer a threat.”

“How can you _know_...?” Jake babbles. “How can you be sure...?”

“We're sure,” Roxy says. She looks up into the canopy of leaves. “I've learned to trust gut feelings this strong.”

It sounds to Jake like a crapshoot, but when the girls start walking back down the thorny path out of the woods, he follows.

They walk quietly for a while, both girls too drained from their feat to expend precious energy. Still, it's a bit too dire of a topic for Jake to just let it up and die so easily. He needs answers. He needs _reassurance._

“B-but did killing Lord English really stop anything?” he asks. “Won't the world eventually end, anyway?”

“It stopped us from dying rightnow,” Callie points out. “And if the death of a universe really is inevitable, then what does it need me or him for?”

Jake's brow furrows. “Well... who will put a new universe in its place?”

She hums. “Maybe one will pop up on its own. But does there always need to be a universe? If we'll be long gone by then, why does it upset us so, to think our notion of existence won't always be around? Death is inevitable, but is murder? Because that's really what my brother wanted to do to this world.”

“My head hurts,” Jake groans. “This is too much to deal with for one night.”

“We still have to explain this to my parents,” Roxy grumbles.

“And a few days from now,” Callie chimes in, “when our journey has ended, we'll have to tell Jake's mother, too.”

Ω

They return to the beach. The Mayor is sitting in the sand, one arm cradled in his lap, the other idly waving the knife, but he jumps to his feet the moment he spots them. And they know why he looks at them with such wide eyes: all three of them are covered in ash and looking like they fought with body and soul, but Roxy is the worst for wear, her clothes ripped and blood-stained. It takes a lot to convince him that they're not mortally injured, but less to convince him that Jake is alright.

He writes in the sand, with the blade of the knife. _I KNEW YOU'D MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE._ Which surprises Jake. Because even he didn't think he would.

Jake apologizes to the Mayor profusely as Callie checks out his wrist. Roxy's gaze, meanwhile, drifts to the water.

“Hey – you kept the rower from leaving,” Roxy says with a tired smile. “Good job, man.”

_I DID NOT FOLLOW JAKE,_ the Mayor writes,  _BECAUSE I DID NOT WANT US TO BE TRAPPED IN THIS PLACE._

“Good call,” Roxy compliments him.

The party of four gets into the dinghy. The rower doesn't ask questions; he just pushes away from the shore and starts paddling them home.

Even with the fog continuing to obscure their way home, they can see the slow ascent of the sun into the sky. The stars and their inky pool of night fade into blue, and then into yellow.

The light is not a relief; it just reminds them all of the night of sleep they have lost.

The boat ride doesn't seem to take as long as it did the first time. But the moment the boat stops and the familiar shore comes back into view, they are all ready to weep. Roxy falls to her knees and kisses the sand, and Jake accuses her of falling from exhaustion and using relief as a cover-up.

It occurs to each of them slowly, but eventually, that the rower has nothing to return to but rubble and corpses. Before any of them can begin to wonder what he'll do, he jams his oars against the shore and starts rowing the boat back into the fog. Even as the sun continues to rise, painting the shore in yellow and pinkish tones, they still can't make out where he is in the water. It's almost as if he's vanished like his boss.

Ω

And so, the curse is broken. The Strider parents sleep, knowing, finally, that they get to keep their beloved daughter. Jake sleeps, knowing that tomorrow is a new day. And while bereft of the love of his life, at least his family has grown slightly larger to compensate. The Mayor sleeps, knowing that someday he will return again to his homeland. And Roxy sleeps, knowing the same, dreaming indulgently of being called _Madame President_ and parading her first woman around a newly democratic Derse.

Callie, though. Callie is still awake. Her newfound freedom comes with a desperate desire to know what happens next.

With her brother gone, she feels changed right down to her molecules. She can feel his absence like a fluttery, wonderful feeling, like looking at Roxy, like being in love, but it also. It also aches. She's not sure she can trust this. She wonders how the world can go on just the same without him.

There must be _some_ difference.

The heroine has saved the day. Shouldn't the princess be free of a curse or two?

Roxy mumbles something in her sleep. Callie leans down, plucks a strand of golden hair from the other girl's ear. To think that there are eons separating them in age. Callie's heart has never swelled with such love before, and the thought makes her scared.

What if people still forget her existence? What if Roxy goes on a trip without her, and when she comes back, she greets Callie as if she were a stranger? Callie could cling to Roxy for the rest of her life and never find out anything other than that her insecurities will wear Roxy down until she _willingly_ leaves for good.

She needs a test, she thinks, running her thumb over the golden hair. Something short of running away. Something easily forgotten.

Callie leans down into Roxy's ear. The other girl smacks her lips once, twice, and, even though she is sleeping, her brow furrows, as if listening.

And then a smile brighter than sunshine slides across the young girl's face. And twin sunrise eyes are suddenly looking up into Callie's.

“Calliope,” Roxy whispers. “What a beautiful name.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Too sappy?
> 
> I have a few regrets with the POF series. Not a lot! But a few.
> 
> 1\. I wish that in I'll Have My Pound of Flesh Rare, during one of his mental breakdown scenes, I'd referenced Dirk seeing "a girl with curled horns" - the ghost of Damara, basically. to keep readers guessing about the whole ghost thing and to set it up better. The oneshot i had planned to write about Snowman and Damara’s friendship would have covered this at the very end, as a flash forward after Damara’s death taking place in the middle of the events of IHMPoFR; sadly, I no longer have the energy to write this oneshot.  
> 2\. I wish I'd called this the Rotten Verse. Because, from the beginning, something rotten has been brewing in this story's universe - Caliborn, and his nefarious plans. And, I mean. It's a dying universe. It's rotting literally, not just metaphorically. (Also Something Rotten should'vehad a different, more Roxy-centric title, but... eh. Whatever, I made it work.)  
> 3\. I wish I'd developed Caliborns evil plot more. I don't mean I wish I'd explained it more (because "he hates everything and wants everything dead" is... pretty much it), and I don’t wish I had added more to his motivation than Just Because. I mean, his goals are 2-dimensional in canon, too! He just wants to kill everything because he's a shitty brat! He is death and destruction just as Callie is growth and life, yadda yadda. But I wish I'd shown Caliborn to the readers more. Convinced rather than told readers who Lord English is as a person. He basically disappears as a character after the first story - he makes appearances, but we’re so far removed from him at that point that it’s… hard to hate an invisible villain? Not that I think anyone would start liking him. He’s bad, he commits genocide. But we don’t see him often. We grow indifferent to him. That happens in real life, too - there are these awful people in the world, but if they’re not right in front of us, we often don’t think about them, let alone channel energy into Feeling Angry about them.  
> 4\. I should’ve established the talking to dead ppl vs. symbolic dream visions stuff I smash into Callie’s thoughts in this final chapter waaaay earlier. I should’ve established that in Something Rotten, honestly. God knows it could’ve come up at some point in Roxy’s vague magical education.
> 
> I am so, so burnt out on this series. I have been for a while. (Since..... longer than I'm willing to admit.) So, my biggest regret of all is not writing this series with the enthusiasm it deserves. 
> 
> Ah, well. I don't regret writing these fics, nor do i regret everything I've learned writing them, nor do I regret your feedback and the chance to bring some entertainment into your lives.
> 
> Thank you all so, so much for your continuing kudos and comments and just, hell, for reading, period. Thank you to all of the shy readers, to the people who’ve kept with the series since the first fic, to the people who only read the first one, to the people who liked the sequels better… all of you. It’s been quite a year.


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